Jerry Steimel was born in Louisville, Kentucky, where he spent his youth and then his undergraduate college years at the University of Louisville. He departed Louisville in 1974 to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago, receiving a Masters in Social Work. During a forty-five year career in youth work he worked in various settings serving disadvantaged youth. These include the court system of Chicago, a residential program in Maine, an outdoor adventure program in Massachusetts, and as the director of a shelter for runaway teens in the Boston area. The final years of his career were with Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston as Director of the Charlestown Club and Executive VP of Operations. He is married and has two daughters. Now retired, he resides in Newburyport, Massachusetts--when not wandering the country in his 1973 VW bus named Zorba.