Colbert C. Held

Colbert C. Held taught at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, then served for fifteen years as a Foreign Service Officer with assignments in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, as well as successive temporary missions in every country in the Middle East. He later became Diplomat-in-Residence at Baylor University.

John Thomas Cummings has spent nearly thirty years as a development economist in the Middle East with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, USAID, and the World Bank. He has taught economic development and international economics at Al-Hikma University (Baghdad), Suffolk University, Tufts University, and the University of Texas at Austin.