ROBERT SWAYZE has lived and worked throughout the United States, working as a journalist, carpenter, manager for local governments, consultant and novelist. He is the author of 100 Swings, 5.11 and Sometimes In Winter. He now lives in Los Angeles.

Swayze was a founding partner of Economic Development Results, LLC, former Manager of Economic Development for the City of Long Beach and the Los Angeles County Development Authority (CDA) and Senior Vice President for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. While at the CDA, he conceived, developed and managed the Business Technology Center, one of California’s largest high-tech accelerators. At Long Beach, he led the C-17 Red Team, one of the single largest business retention efforts in California. He developed and managed projects that captured 29 national, state and local awards.

Swayze served for ten years as president and vice-president of Morford Conservation Company. He played a key role in promoting the agreement that reacquired and preserved 1,500 acres on Hamburg Mountain in rural northwest New Jersey for conservation purposes — formerly state-owned property that had been sold to a developer in the early 1980s.