Armando I. Perez, Ph.D., husband of the late Grace S. Wolff, M.D., was born in Havana, Cuba. Soon after the Revolution, he immigrated with his family to Spain and from there to the United States. In his career he was an environmental engineer and urban planner, and served in numerous societies and committees—most notably as Chair of the Urban Planning and Development Division of the American Society of Civil Engineers, from which he received the Harland Bartholomew National Urban Planning Award. Before he retired, he was a vice president with the international consulting firm CDM Smith Inc.

Dr. Perez spends his retirement playing the alto saxophone, learning French and Italian, and participating in book clubs and church activities. He divides the year between his home in Coral Gables, Florida, and his vacation cabin in the Adirondacks of New York. Perhaps the greatest challenge of his life was to provide care for his beloved Grace when she contracted ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Grace fought the disease as forcefully as she had toiled on behalf of her patients, but she succumbed in July 2015. He wrote this book in her honor.