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John G. Parsons, FASLA, joined the National Park Service in 1967 and spent 41 years directing the development of the 80,000 acres of parks within Washington, DC and the National Capital Region. From 1977 to his retirement in 2008 he served as the Associate Regional Director where he represented the Secretary of the Interior on numerous boards and commissions. During his tenure he directed the siting and design of 25 new memorials in the Nation's Capital, the establishment of five new units of the National Park System and the acquisition of 35,000 acres of new parklands. He was awarded the Department of the Interior's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, and is a Fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects, which awarded him the 2003 Lagasse Medal for his leader-ship in protecting and enhancing parklands. In 2006 he was awarded the Herbert Adams Award by the National Sculpture Society for his support of sculpture in national memorials. In 2008 the Mayor of the District of Columbia presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his significant contributions in historic preservation

Kenneth I. Helphand is Knight Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Oregon. Helphand is a frequent visiting professor at the Technion—The Israel Institute of Technology. His books include Dreaming Gardens: Landscape Architecture and the Making of Modern Israel (2002), and Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime (2006). Helphand has served as editor of Landscape Journal, and is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and The Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture. He is also an Honorary Member of the Israel Association of Landscape Architects, a recipient of the Bradford Williams Medal, a Graham Foundation Grant, and former Chair of the Senior Fellows in Garden and Landscape Studies at Dumbarton Oaks