Leonard Gray, author of How to Navigate Today, Sixth Edition, has been a student, teacher, and user of navigation for more than thirty years. He sails the Chesapeake Bay, and occasionally other waters.

On land, Gray is a bicycle rider, licensed hot-air-balloon pilot, and an amateur painter and sculptor. He has been a teacher of optical theory to manufacturing technicians and the deputy director of a government laboratory. Gray is a member of the Institute of Navigation and the Washington Independent Writers society. He is a freelance writer and editor, and lives in a solar-heated house in the woods near Manassas, Virginia.