Mark Ritchie is a renowned commodities trader at the Chicago Board of Trade and Chicago Mercantile Exchange. A twenty-year veteran of the financial industry, he is one of the original founding partners of Chicago Research and Trading, once the largest options firm in the industry. He is also the author of two books, God in the Pits and Spirit of the Rainforest. Mark has traveled extensively throughout the third world as an amateur anthropologist with a special interest in the poor.