Rick Berry, Executive Director of The Children of the Earth Foundation, began with the Tracker School in 1986 at the age of 15. Rick has been teaching these skills for the past 15 years as a naturalist outdoor teacher and survival instructor.

Rick earned a BS degree from Humboldt State in his home state of California in 1993. After college Rick spent the next 5 years practicing his skills of survival living in the Klamath Mountains and learned about the local Indigenous ways through his friend Gary Morris, who lived with a Yurok elder for 20 years.

Rick also taught children as a naturalist in Northern California, then and spent two years in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey as a caretaker for the Tracker School learning from Tom Brown Jr. and directly from his experiences living close to the land. After caretaking Rick started to work with the Tracker's Coyote Camps in 2000 and in 2004 began as the director for The Children of the Earth Foundation dedicated to passing on these ancient skills to children and families.