Leslie A Viereck retired as principal plant ecologist from the U.S. Forest Service’s Institute of Northern Forestry in Fairbanks in 1996, and went on to be an emeritus scientist with the Boreal Ecology Cooperative Research Unit (BECRU) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He also held an Affiliate Professor of Forest Ecology position in the School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences (SNRAS) at UAF, as well as research associate appointments with the Institute of Arctic Biology and the University of Alaska Museum of the North.

Elbert L. Little, Jr., died in 2004 after a distinguished career as senior scientist and chief dendrologist with the U.S. Forest Service in Washington, D.C. He was an authority on both North American and tropical trees. Among his more than twenty books on trees are the five-volume Atlas of United States Trees (1981) and the popular Audubon Field Guide to North American Trees. Dr. Little was coauthor of the 1950 edition of the Pocket Guide to Alaska Trees and made several extended field trips to Alaska during the preparation of Alaska Trees and Shrubs.