Born and raised in the Philippines, Maila Aganon emigrated with her parents in 1992, after she completed her first semester of college. She describes as "typical" her youth as the youngest child (with brothers 5 and 7 years older) of a teacher who worked in another village and a father who worked out of the country. Although independent, she was part of a tightly knit village. The household spoke three languages: her mother's dialect, her father's dialect, and Tagalog.

Jack Wayne Zunino was born July 13, 1948, in Elko, Nevada to John Wilson Zunino and Loretta Yvette Hansen. He earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Utah and a master's degree in landscape architecture and environmental panning from Utah State University. In 1989, Zunino established JW Zunino Landscape Architecture, a firm that became a cornerstone of landscape design in the Southwest.