Raised in a military family, Clay Arango has called many places home including Kentucky, Pennsylvania, New York, Kansas, Nebraska, Germany, and California. He moved to Ellensburg while in high school and quickly fell in love with the mountains and streams of the central Cascades. His love of this region led him on an academic journey to become a stream ecologist, whereupon he immediately moved back to Ellensburg to work at Central Washington University. Today, Clay is a biology and environmental studies professor who studies how forest insects affect stream ecosystems.