Vernon O. Mayes has lived on and off the Navajo Reservation since 1958. A range-conservation instructor who has worked for the U.S. Forestry Service, Vernon and Barbara Bayless Lacy, a former public relations/researcher with the Navajo Health Authority (NHA), who's task was to collect information about Navajo traditional medicine, combined their years of research to create an educational literary tour of Navajo plants in Nanise' A Navajo Herbal: One Hundred Plants from the Navajo Reservation.