Yazmin Beltran Elizade was born (1985) and raised in a Mexico that was increasing in violence and danger. Over the years, her father Jose Beltran dreamed of the opportunities of a better life in the United States. Eventually, that dream became a reality in Las Vegas when Yazmin was a teenager. By then, she had aspirations to become a lawyer and fight criminal activity.

To sit with Andres Dominguez in his barbershop is to sense both the love he holds for his grandfather Julian Madrid and the passion Andres brings to the art of barbering. Andres enthusiastically remembers hanging out with his maternal grandmother as a youngster in Julian’s El Cortez Barber Shop. From 1974 to 2005, Madrid operated the El Cortez Barber Shop.

David E. James is an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and has been with the university since 1990. He is currently the director of Solar and Renewable Energy Programs for UNLV. In 2017, he and the students on his team led UNLV to victory in the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon, placing first with a score of 98 out of 100. In the past, David James has served as Associate Vice Provost for Academic Programs, and the President of the Nevada Society of Professional Engineers.

Horace Emery was born in 1911 in California. He moved to Nevada in 1922 to work on the Hoover Dam. Emery also worked as a river boatman on the Colorado River, the Davis Dam, and as a factory worker in Clark County, Nevada.