GARY SIMONS taught elementary school students in the South Bronx for eleven years. In 1978, while a fellow in the Graduate Leadership Education Project in Gifted & Talented, at Teachers College, Columbia, he founded PREP FOR PREP, which as of 2025 has over 4,500 students and alumni. After 25 years at Prep, Gary stepped down and founded Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America (LEDA) in 2003. Before doing so, however, he compiled and edited the anthology BE THE DREAM: PREP FOR PREP GRADUATES SHARE THEIR STORIES. He is currently a gardener and a poet and lives in Connecticut.