CARL BARDEN

Lit by Bill Haast at twelve, he flew airliners for twenty-two years to bankroll a venom operation run out of his own home — then made it his life's work. Medtoxin Venom Laboratories, opened in 1994, extracts venom from twenty-five to thirty species and ships it to researchers, universities, and pharmaceutical labs around the world. In 2009 he added the Reptile Discovery Center, bringing the public face-to-face with the animals most fear.