Mrs. McKinney is a field biologist who has worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Texas Parks and Wildlife throughout west Texas, focusing on monitoring and protecting cacti, bats, elf owls, peregrine falcons and other raptors, and black bear, as well as on maintaining good relations with private landowners and conducting classroom programs for children. She later worked as the wildlife coordinator for El Carmen-CEMEX in the Maderas del Carmen preserve, a sky island just across the Rio Grande from Big Bend National Park in Mexico.