Thompson Smith is director of tribal history and ethnogeography projects for the Salish-Pend d'Oreille Culture Committee, a department of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana. He is preparing a number of books, including the four-volume "Voices of the Sqelixw: A Tribal History of the Salish and Pend d'Oreille People." Previously, Thompson was executive director of Flathead Resource Organization (FRO), a nonprofit that works to protect and restore the environment of the lower Flathead River drainage system and promote a healthy and sustainable human relationship with that environment. Thompson has also co-produced "The Place of the Falling Waters," an award-winning, three-part documentary film history of the Flathead Reservation, focusing on the construction of a major hydroelectric dam in the 1930's. Thompson is a doctoral candidate in American Studies at Yale University.