Lee Bergthold holds advanced degrees: an M.S. and M.A. from UC Santa Barbara and completed an 8 to 10-year study involving terminally ill cancer subjects. He also conducted an 8-year study developing a fitness indices for subjects working at sea level to altitude that involved metabolic sugar levels, ventilation volumes, cardiac uptake, and recovery. He has been a professor for over thirty years teaching photojournalism and documentary. He has spent over half a century exploring isolated regions of the southwest from sea level to altitude. ""To search out lands that have possibly never been touched by mankind."" During the 1950's he also served with the 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions during the Korean War.