Missouri Conservationist online

Tom Aley is a hydrologist and forester who has studied karst groundwater throughout the United States for 35 years. He is the founder and director of the Ozark Underground Laboratory near Protem, where he hosts many schools groups learning about caves. He and his wife, Cathy, live on a hillside overlooking Bear Cave Hollow.

David C. Ashley is a professor of biology at Missouri Western State College. A parasitologist, he studies prairie fringed orchids and the moths that feed on them. He also is an accomplished cave biologist and a member of the National Speleological Society, the Missouri Speleological Survey and the Missouri Cave and Karst Conservancy. He and his wife, Sharon, live in St. Joseph and enjoy camping with their three children.

William R. (Bill) Elliott has been the cave biologist for the Conservation Department for two years. A native Texan, he has explored and studied many caves in a dozen states, Mexico and Belize. His most exciting trip was rappelling 646 feet into a Mexican pit to a deep lake that contained thousands of blind fish. He enjoys canoeing, hiking and photography in his spare time.

Mark McGimsey served as a biologist with the Conservation Department for over three years. Since leaving the Conservation Department, he has been conducting an endangered bat survey throughout the Midwest. He and his wife, Joanne Grady, live in Columbia. Mark has logged a lot of time in the underground. He enjoys flying-disc golf in his spare time.

Dwight Weaver is the public information officer for the Department of Natural Resource's Division of Geology and Land Survey. He has been a Missouri cave enthusiast for more than 40 years and is noted for his research in the area of Missouri cave history. He most recent book, Wilderness Underground: Caves of the Ozark Plateau, was published by the University of Missouri Press.