M.L. Rowland

Born, raised and, except for one year of high school in Hawaii, schooled kindergarten through college in Michigan, Rowland comes by her adventurous spirit honestly. Her mother was Grand Rapids, Michigan’s first woman city commissioner. Her father—a neurosurgeon and marine scientist—was a world traveler and member of The Explorer’s Club. After college, Rowland lived and worked in Florida, Missouri, Connecticut and New York City, finally settling in the mountains of southern California where she and her husband, Mark, joined the local Search and Rescue (SAR) team. During her twelve years on Search and Rescue, Rowland participated in hundreds of search and rescue missions and trainings, including technical ropes rescues and recoveries, helicopter insertions and evacuations, and searches for lost children, hikers, snowboarders, mountain bikers and criminal evidence, in alpine, desert and urban environments. She served as the team’s Training Officer and participated in community events and public speaking engagements. Trained in land navigation, and desert and winter survival, including avalanche awareness and self-arrest, she also holds a certification in tracking from the State of California. Much of what she writes about in her Gracie Kinkaid Search and Rescue Mystery Series is drawn from her and her husband’s SAR experiences. Rowland also served on the advisory Board of a Colorado County Sheriff’s Department All-Hazards Incident Management Team (IMT) which manages local search and rescue operations, brush and wildfires, planned community events and other critical incidents. Rowland is an avid political activist, naturalist and environmentalist. She’s an accomplished painter and loves to snorkel. Topping her bucket list: snorkeling with whale sharks. She has traveled to all fifty United States and throughout the world, including Kenya, New Zealand, the South Pacific and Europe. As often as possible, she hikes and explores the slot canyons of Utah. Rowland lives with her family in south-central Colorado.