Fred Civish is a professional journalist living in West Jordan, Utah.
He is also a fourth-generation coal miner, having worked in the mines as a teenager, including a summer spent swinging a sixteen-pound spike hammer in 100 degree heat. Being a fourth-generation miner meant he was raised in a coal camp and heard mining stories all his life. Thus began a lifelong belief in the greatness and nobility of the so-called "common working man." Fred has always had a desire to write, and he has written more than a thousand articles for dozens of trade journals. He received a bachelor's degree in Journalism and later a master's degree in Educational Psychology, which led to a position as an associate psychologist at the Utah State Training School for the mentally handicapped. His broad range of activities and interests include such diverse things as parachute jumping and diving for abalone in the Pacific.