Hayes spent his youth in Texas and served as a U.S. Marine and as a police officer before embarking on a career in the oil industry. Alaska has been his home for more than 30 years. Hayes’s book Beyond the American Dream: Lifelong Learning and the Search for Meaning in a Postmodern World received recognition by the American Library Association’s CHOICE Magazine as one of the most outstanding academic books of the year.

Promoting the idea that education should be thought of not as something you get but as something you take, Hayes’s work has been featured in USA Today and the UTNE Reader, on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation, and on Alaska Public Radio’s Talk of Alaska. His Web sites provide resources for self-directed learners ... from advice about credentials to philosophy about the value lifelong learning brings to everyday living.