M. Gerald Bradford was the executive director of the Maxwell Institute when this was written. Since 1995 he has held various administrative positions at BYU. From 1988 until he came to BYU, Bradford was the executive associate of the Western Center of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences with offices on the campus of the University of California, Irvine.

From 1980 to 1988, he was administrative director of the Robert Maynard Hutchins Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, located on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara. For four years prior to this appointment he was associate director of the Institute of Religious Studies, an organized research unit on the UCSB campus. While pursuing these administrative responsibilities, Jerry also taught courses in the Department of Religious Studies at UCSB and in the Department of Cognitive Sciences at UCI. He has also taught at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and at BYU.

Jerry received his PhD in religious studies from UCSB in 1977. He has an MA in religious studies, also from UCSB, and in 1965 received an MS in business administration and finance from San Francisco State University. He is a graduate of the University of Utah.

He is married to JeNeal (Jones) Bradford, and they live in Provo, Utah. They have two children and seven grandchildren.