About the Authors:  Elizabeth Adams Smith, Richard Y. Smith, Bridget Balthrop Morton, Catherine Haden & Chris Haden

Elizabeth Adams Smith

Beth has been "messing about in boats" for most of her life — in the early years it was one-designs (she and her brother, Rick, sailed a Comet) and later considerably larger cruising boats. Coastal cruises, with her husband, Richard (ACC's publisher), have included numerous trips along the Eastern seaboard, including the ICW, where they perfected the art of "achievable cruising" — cruise for a week or two, leave the boat, go home, come back a month or two later and continue on. Other cruising adventures have taken them to Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the South Pacific, and the Mediterranean. They have shared many of these experiences with three superb crew members — their now-grown children Jason and Amanda and their sea-dog Molly. Beth and Richard are firm believers in "going" even if it means taking the office along — and technology has made that not only possible but quite easy. They are also committed to wonderful food along the way — on board and ashore. Provisioning, they’ve discovered, may be the most useful of all cruising skills and they seek out the best resources at every landfall. Along the way, they’ve visited well over 2,000 marinas (most several times) as both cruisers and reviewers.

In addition to being one of the primary writers of the ACC’s Guides to Marinas, Beth is incubating the Wandering Mariner’s Water Lovers website (land-based travel guides for people with a passion for the water) and the Healthy Boat series (holistic approaches to crew lifestyle and vessel management). She is also a new media designer and has produced video documentaries and multiple media projects in the areas of complementary and integrative medicine, holistic living, ecology, peace-making, technology, and food and health (including the award-winning "Children of War," the Mellon-funded "Students at Work," and "EarthFriends"). She created and developed the first, and largest, full-text and image database on complementary medicine, "Alt-HealthWatch," and is an advisor/consultant to firms focused on healthy living and integrative medicine.

Beth received a Doctorate from Columbia University in Educational Technology and New Media, Masters degrees in both Health Education (with a Nutrition focus) and Ed Tech from Columbia, and a B.S. in Broadcast Journalism from Boston University. She is a Certified Health Education Specialist and a graduate of James Gordon’s Advanced Mind-Body Professional Training Program and the Natural Gourmet Institute for Food and Health. She is also Past President of the Board of Trustees and current Honorary Trustee of Wainwright House, an educational institution focusing on the integration of body, mind and spirit, immediate past Co-Chair of the American Yacht Club Cruise Committee and is a member of the International Food, Wine and Travel Writers Association, Boating Writers International, and Society of American Travel Writers.

Richard Y. Smith 

Richard is Publisher of Jerawyn Publishing Inc, the primary editor of the Guides and President of Evergreen Capital Partners Inc. JPI is an umbrella company for the Atlantic Cruising Club and other publishing imprints.  In addition to marine facilities, JPI focuses on coastal lifestyles, maritime-oriented travel and holistic living. JPI’s activities involve data collection and publication using DatastractTM, a proprietary data input and publishing program that permits the creation, maintenance, and direct publication of extensive databases of both factual and editorial information.

Evergreen Capital Partners Inc. undertakes merchant banking and private capital transactions both as an advisor and as a principal. As an advisor, the firm offers private financing, merger, acquisition, and divestiture advice to managements, directors, private investors, and institutional funds. As a principal, Evergreen Capital invests its own funds, often in conjunction with other individual or institutional private equity investors. 

Prior to establishing Evergreen Capital in 1993, Richard was a Managing Director of Chemical Bank (now JP Morgan Chase) with responsibility for several investment and merchant banking groups. He was also a Senior Vice President of Rothschild Inc., an investment banking, venture capital, and money management firm. Richard received a B. A. degree from Wesleyan University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. He has also been awarded the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. When not reviewing marinas, editing books, attempting to close private equity deals, or out sailing, Richard is active in a number of not-for-profit activities including service as a former Chair of the Rye Arts Center, Inc., Past Chair of the Wesleyan (University) Annual Fund, past Fleet Captain and current Trustee of the American Yacht Club, and, occasionally, as the bass player in the venerable 60's rock ‘n’ roll band, "Gary and the Wombats."

Bridget Balthrop Morton

Bridget grew up on the waters of Pensacola Bay, where she learned as a child to fish, water ski, and sail from small wooden boats. She began cruising seriously with her husband on Savaina, the steel ketch they lived aboard when they first married. They took the boat down the Mississippi from the Great Lakes (her advice: Don’t!) and then cruised Florida, the Bahamas, and the northern Caribbean. After crewing aboard a large catamaran in the Virgin Islands, she taught sailing, seamanship, and professional development skills for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School in Maine. She has also taught for Outward Bound schools in Boston, Baltimore, and the Florida Keys. 

She is licensed by the Coast Guard to operate sail and power vessels in near coastal waters, but has sailed worldwide, including deliveries to Bermuda, the Virgin Islands, and South America. For the Atlantic Cruising Club’s Guide to Florida’s East Coast Marinas, she visited, reviewed, and photographed more than 150 marinas and boat yards along the coast and St. John’s River. A writer of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, she holds a Bachelor of Arts degree (cum laude) from Rosary College (now Dominican University) and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Warren Wilson College. She has taught creative writing and humanities at the college level, and English, mathematics, and social studies to junior high and high school students. Her poems have been published in journals and anthologies, and her essays have appeared in many magazines, including Sail. She has served on the Speakers Bureau for the Florida Department of Humanities.

A lifelong resident of Florida, she and her husband Jack have sailed together for thirty-four years. They have three children and two grandchildren who live nearby in Brevard County, Florida. She continues to maintain that the cook and steward have the most importance, aboard or ashore, since even when you’re lost, the crew needs to eat! One of her favorite memories at sea is serving hot scones and tea to the crew of the yacht 8 Bells as they surfed downwind toward Bermuda after a storm. She takes as her motto the words of Mark Twain: "We’re not out here to rough it. It’s rough enough on shore."

Chris and Catherine Haden

Chris Haden retired from a career in the military in 2000. He served first in the active Army and saw service in Vietnam with the First Infantry Division. Later, he joined the California Army National Guard as a full-time active duty member. His job as a combat engineer operations sergeant led him to many far-flung destinations over the years, including Panama, Honduras, and Bangladesh. After retiring, Chris turned his hand to freelance writing and photography, with particular interest in the nature and boating fields.

Catherine Haden spent her working career in hospitals in the patient administration field. She served on the Board of Directors of the California Association of Hospital Admitting Managers for many years. After some 20 years in the trenches, she went to work as a technical editor for a medical book publisher and was able to work from home. She followed husband Chris into retirement in 2003.

Chris and Catherine raised two sons, one now serving with the U.S. Army and one pursuing a career in hospital administration. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree. Travel was always an important part of their lives and they have visited Germany, France, Holland, Japan, Jamaica, Thailand, Singapore, Canada and Mexico, as well as cruising through the Panama Canal.

Chris and Catherine Haden have spent a lot of time “messing about in boats.” They have owned a succession of boats; both power and sail, over the years. They have bare boat chartered in the San Juan Islands, gone house boating on Lake Powell and the Sacramento River Delta and cruised the California coast in their Grand Banks 48, E Ticket. One of their fondest memories is a weeklong cruise through southeast Alaska aboard a 65-foot Malahide trawler. The Guide to Northwest Marinas is their first book together, but Catherine has authored a book for hospital administration professionals and Chris has published numerous articles in various magazines.