Contact me via email at bhaught(at)flascience(dot)org.

The writing bug infected me early. During my middle school years in northeast Ohio I started writing a fantasy novel but my motivation fizzled after too much time spent hunting and pecking on a manual typewriter. Around the same time, I persuaded the school librarian to let me start a school newspaper. Oh my, the editorial power was an intoxicating rush to my prepubescent mind!

After high school I enlisted in the Marine Corps and then trained to become a combat correspondent. I traveled all across the country and around the world reporting on what Marines were up to. For instance, I wrote a story about Marines who assisted in recovery operations after a horrible 1993 Amtrak passenger train derailment disaster near Mobile, Alabama. Two years later I covered another tragedy while serving at a recruiting station headquarters on the sixth floor of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. My story recounted the events of April 19, 1995, as seen through the eyes of a Marine sergeant who survived the bombing. I served at several other duty stations during my military career, including aboard the USS Bataan with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit while on deployment in the Mediterranean area.

After leaving the Corps I found work as a graphic designer for a small newspaper in western North Carolina. A bit of sweet talking got me an additional gig there as a weekly columnist. Then 52 columns later I moved to Florida where I was a sheriff’s office spokesman for a decade. While there I also took college courses at night and online to earn a degree in science education. When I finally obtained my teacher certification I was hired in 2014 at a high school in Central Florida. I’ve taught biology and currently teach environmental science, which means that among the topics I cover are evolution and climate change. Imagine that!

I’m a founding board member and volunteer communications director for the nonprofit Florida Citizens for Science, a science education advocacy organization. Through my work there I got deeply involved in a major controversy in 2008 over the teaching of evolution in the state’s schools. From that experience sprang the idea for my first book, Going Ape.

I live in Central Florida with my wife, Karen, and our cats, Arya and Sweet Caroline. I have two grown children, Caleb and Hailey, both having served in the military.