Bruce Jay Wasser graduated with high honors from Princeton University in 1971. A conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, Wasser performed alternative service as a laboratory glassware washer in the Palo Alto (CA) Veterans Administration Hospital. In the fall of 1973, Wasser began a thirty-three-year career as a junior and high school American history and English teacher in Newark, California. He received numerous honors during his tenure, including "Teacher of the Year" and California's prestigious "Golden Bell" Award for helping create "Programs of Conscience," a curriculum that brought students face-to-face with past and current injustices. Now retired, he lives with his wife, author Fern Schumer Chapman, in northern Illinois where he officiates four sports.