Thomas Nartker was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio. He attended grade school and high school there, and then attended the University of Dayton. He majored in chemical engineering. By the time Nartker was a sophomore in college, He had already been accepted for graduate study at the University of Tennessee.

Author, speaker, and Holocaust survivor Stephen Nasser was born in 1931 in Hungary. As a child he was known as Pista, which translates to Stephen in English. He and his family were forced into a ghetto in 1943. They were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau shortly after, where Nasser witnessed the murder of several relatives. He was liberated from a death train on April 30, 1945 by General Patton’s Third Army.

George Stuart Nixon (1860-1912) was a United States Senator from Nevada during the early 1900s. Nixon was born on April 2, 1860 on a farm close to Newcastle, California. He received his early education from public schools within California and helped with the farm until the age of nineteen. Nixon eventually found work for a railroad company and decided to study telegraphy. Nixon moved to Nevada in 1881, working as a telegraph operator for the Carson and Colorado Railroad for three years.

Layton James O'Neill was born on November 30, 1927, in Glendive, Montana. Layton married Melva Jean in October of 1976, and they had six children: Marilyn, Colleen, Michael, Jenny, Dennis, and Amy.

O'Neill was employed as a health physicist with Application Engineering Company (AEC) in affiliation with the Nevada Test Site. O'Neill also worked for Environmental Restoration and Waste Management (ERWM) and for the Department of Energy (DOE). O'Neill retired in 1994.