Michael Frome, Ph.D., has pursued an illustrious career as author, educator and tireless guardian of the environmental commons. Former Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin declared in Congress: "No writer in America has more persistently and effectively argued for the need of national ethics of environmental stewardship than Michael Frome. " 

Michael has long been associated with the national parks, both as defender and critic. In 1967 he received the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award for Strangers in High Places: The Story of the Great Smoky Mountains, his book that has proven to be a classic. In 1986 he was presented the first Marjory Stoneman Douglas Award in recognition of his many years of constructive work in behalf of national parks.

He continues to pursue his creative work with enthusiasm and unflagging energy. The University of Utah Press has just published an expanded new edition of Michael's book, Battle for the Wilderness, and is preparing for publication next year of an entirely new work, Green Ink -- An Introduction to Environmental Journalism. The Mountaineers in 1996 offered a collection of his writings in Chronicling the West: Thirty Years of Environmental Writing, which Publishers Weekly praised as "environmental criticism at its best."

Born in New York City, Michael served as a World War II navigator, flying to distant corners of the world. He began his writing career as a newspaper reporter and later served as a columnist in Field & Stream, Los Angeles Times and Defenders of Wildlife Magazine. His other books include Regreening the National Parks, Promised Land -- Adventures and Encounters in Wild America, Conscience of a Conservationist, and the National Park Guide (which he prepared through twenty-nine annual editions). 

In recent years he has combined writing with teaching. He retired in June 1995 from the faculty of Western Washington University, at Bellingham, Washington, where for eight years he directed a pioneering program in environmental journalism and writing. In Spring 1998 he will teach a course in Athens, Greece, in an overseas studies program conducted by the American Heritage Association and in Autumn 1988 in Morelia, Mexico, for Centro Mexicano Internacional. The University of Idaho, where he formerly taught, established in his honor the Michael Frome Scholarship for Excellence in Conservation Writing.