Marge Lial (late) became interested in math at an early age–it was her favorite subject in the first grade! Marge's intense desire to educate both her students and herself inspired the writing of numerous best-selling textbooks. Marge, who received Bachelor's and Master's degrees from California State University at Sacramento, was affiliated with American River College. An avid reader and traveler, her travel experiences often found their way into her books as applications, exercise sets, and feature sets. She was particularly interested in archeology; trips to various digs and ruin sites produced some fascinating problems for her textbooks involving such topics as the building of Mayan pyramids and the acoustics of ancient ball courts in the Yucatan. We dedicate the new editions of the paperback developmental math series to Marge in honor of her contributions to the field in which she helped thousands of students succeed. Diana Hestwood lives in Minnesota and has taught at Metropolitan Community College in Minneapolis for two decades. She has done research on the student brain and is an expert on study skills. She is the author of Lial/Hestwood’s Prealgebra and coauthor of Lial/Salzman/Hestwood’s Basic Math and Lial/Hestwood/Hornsby/McGinnis’s Prealgebra and Introductory Algebra. Stan Salzman is a long time resident of Sacramento, California. Stan has taught at American River College for many years, where he was a member of the business department. He is the author of Business Math and Essential Math, published by Pearson Education, Inc., and is coauthor of Basic Math.
