Ernest Beck is an award-winning professional writer and editorial consultant. A former Wall Street Journal staff reporter, he focuses on the intersection of design and business, innovation, and public policy. George E. Harlow, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College in 1971, received his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1977. He is currently the Curator of Minerals and Gems in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the American Museum of Natural History. Trained as a geologist specializing in mineralogy and crystallography, Dr. Harlow has concentrated his research on the chemistry and structure of minerals as tools for understanding their origin and the record of geological processes they contain. Dr. Harlow is a fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America and the author of over 100 scholarly texts. John Bigelow Taylor and Dianne Dubler, the creators and developers of this project, are New York based photographers, specializing in architecture, works of art, antiquities and jewelry. They have created the photography for over 250 books. John Gillespie and his spouse, Andrea Borden, have been actively collecting minerals for more than 30 years. Gillespie has been a portfolio manager and securities analyst for more than thirty years. Since 1997, he has served as the managing member of Prospector Partners, LLC. Mr. Gillespie received a B.A. cum laude from Bates College in 1980 and an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 1986. In addition, he is on the Board of Trustees and Chair of the Investment Committee of Bates College.