THOMAS MCGARRY is an Oregon-based freelance writer specializing in aviation and defense topics. McGarry attended the Allen School of Journalism at the University of Oregon on a Scripps-Howard Foundation Scholarship and was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at Yale University. His writing has appeared in Smithsonian Air & Space, Air Force Times, Air Forces Monthly, Rotor & Wing and the San Francisco Chronicle. A former reporter and columnist for the Oakland Tribune and the San Jose Mercury News, he co-wrote Last Hope: A History of Blood Chits (Schiffer Publishing, 1997), documenting the development and use of escape and evasion aids for aircrews. McGarry first heard of the Insitu Group in 1997 when the company displayed its robotic aircraft at a small air show in Hood River, Ore., not far from his home in Lake Oswego. “I have followed the company’s growth and activities, knowing that when the time was right, their achievements would become noteworthy,” he says. For McGarry’s story on Insitu, “Spy in the Sky,” click here.
Freelance writer TOM NUGENT has spent 30 years covering news and profiling news makers. He has written and reported for a range of publications, including the New York Times, Mother Jones and People. One of his most memorable assignments was a coal-mining catastrophe in West Virginia while he was working for the Detroit Free Press in 1972. It led to a book, Death at Buffalo Creek (W.W. Norton, 1973). Nugent received a journalism fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the mid-’80s, and in recent years he has specialized in writing about the work of groundbreaking scientists, especially medical researchers like psychiatrist Fuller Torrey, MA ’69 (“Brain Storm”). “I love talking to these guys, because they’re so intense,” Nugent says. “They’re like professional athletes. They’re focused to the max, and they’re usually burning with passion.” Nugent lives in Hastings, Mich..
When photographer BRETON LITTLEHALES arrived at Fuller Torrey’s brain-research laboratory, he expected “a scene out of Young Frankenstein,” he says. Littlehales was disappointed that the specimens weren’t labeled “good brain, bad brain” as in the movie, but he found Torrey to be refreshingly down-to-earth and self-effacing. “I had photographed him once before for Washingtonian magazine, so he was very comfortable,” says Littlehales, whose photos accompany “Brain Storm." A longtime freelancer whose work has appeared in National Geographic, Time, Business Week and Forbes, Littlehales is a 1976 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. He also is an accomplished harmonica player who has jammed with the likes of B.B. King and Junior Wells. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Silver Spring, Md.
