Helen Smith was born and raised in New Jersey and came to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Her aunt convinced her to interview for a job at Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital and Smith worked there for a year. She worked in the emergency room in New Jersey, so it was natural for her to start in the newly opened emergency room (ER) at Southern Nevada Memorial. Smith’s career went from relief nurse to supervisor.

Dr. Donald Baepler was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in July of 1932. The family moved to Springfield, Illinois in 1936, where his father was president of Concordia Seminary. Donald decided at the age of seven that he wanted to pursue a Ph.D. in ornithology, not an unusual goal in his family. By the time he graduated high school, he knew that he wanted to attend Carlton College in Minnesota to study under Olin Sewall Pettingill. He followed world-famous ornithologist and artist George Sutton to Michigan and then to Oklahoma to complete his doctorate.