James is a safety professional and is an active member of the Project Safe Georgia Safety Advisory Board of the Georgia Department of Labor, past President of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) Georgia Chapter; Past Chair for the Gwinnett Safety Professionals Association and has been adjunct instructor for the Occupational Health and Safety Technology Program at Lanier Tech and an adjunct instructor at Georgia Tech. He has received management awards for his efforts and was named the ASSE Georgia Chapter Safety Professional of the Year (SPY) 1998-1999 and Project Safe Georgia Safety Professional, 2008.Kent Haruf was born in Pueblo, Colorado on February 24, 1943. He received a BA… from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965 and an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973. His first novel, The Tie That Binds, was published in 1984 and won a Whiting Writers' Prize. His other works included Where You Once Belonged, Plainsong, Benediction, and Our Souls at Night. He spent 30 years teaching English and writing at several universities including Southern Illinois University and Nebraska Wesleyan University. He died on November 30, 2014 at the age of 71.