John DeMerritt owns and operates John DeMerritt Bookbinding, in Emeryville, CA. Since 1995, John’s studio has produced books and portfolios for artists, galleries, fine press publishers and institutions. John has taught and lectured widely. From 2000 to 2013, he taught Book Structure at the San Francisco Art Institute. Since 2024, DeMerritt has been the Design Consultant at Arion Press. DeMerritt and his wife, Nora Pauwels, publish collaborative projects with artists under their imprint DeMerritt | Pauwels Editions.

Brian Ferrett has a printing degree from MATC and previously worked in offset web and screen printing. Ferrett has worked with M&H Type since 2008 when he began his apprenticeship under Lewis Mitchell. These days he manages M&H’s daily operations, maintains the historic casting machines and presses, and works the presses as needed. Ferritt is a member of the Northern California chapter of the American Printing History Association, the American Typecaster Fellowship, and volunteers with San Francisco Public Library’s annual Valentine’s Day broadside event.

Megan Gibes’ life-long love of working with her hands led her to complete the Bookbinding Program at the North Bennett Street School in Boston. In 2016, she began the Arion Press apprenticeship program, and is now the Bindery Manager, running day to day production. In addition to teaching bookbinding at places such as the San Francisco Center for the Book and the Penland School of Craft, she also collaborates with artists, writers, and publishers on projects as Long Arrow Bindery.

Jane Kamensky, Ph.D. is President and CEO of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. A leading historian of early America, she served as the Trumbull Professor of American History at Harvard and directed the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America. She has also worked with the Smithsonian, the Museum of the American Revolution, and Educating for American Democracy. Kamensky is the author of several acclaimed books, including A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley (2016) and Candida Royalle and the Sexual Revolution: A History From Below (2024).

Jocelyn Lee is a bookbinder at Arion Press and printmaker in her free time.

David Smith is Superintendent of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park Service. The park spans 82,000-acres within three counties, including 60 miles of coast north and south of the Golden Gate Bridge, more than 130 miles of trails, 1,200 historic structures, and includes Alcatraz, Muir Woods, Fort Point, and Fort Mason. Smith previously served as Superintendent for Joshua Tree National Monument in California, and Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Kansas.