Stephen Beebe grew up on a farm in Iowa in the 1950s, and received a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics from the University of Wisconsin. He has spent his professional life in Latin America working on crop improvement with a cadre of agricultural scientists for the benefit of small farmers in the tropics of Central and South America and Eastern-southern Africa. He has served in Bahá’í administrative bodies, both Local and National Spiritual Assemblies, in Guatemala and in Colombia where he lives with his wife and family.