I was flipping channels for Japans earthquake coverage and on MSNBC they had on Aton Edwards a 'Preparedness Expert'.

I went to his wiki and its pretty positive, almost overtly so. Then I remembered seeing him over the years on a couple of news shorts for preparedness and NYC and he wrote that book 'Preparedness Now' which I have not read.

I am not positive or negative on him, but can not find any unbiased review of his technique, book and processes. He is certainly not mentioned on ETS often. As this forum has done often with Bear, Les, Cody, Dave Canterbury and Ray Mears, what is the no-B.S. on this guy.

Is he a publicity hound?
Is he credible, (ie, is the advice sound, tested)?
Do you think he is okay?
Do you think he is crock?
Why do you think he is not mentioned here often, is it because he is not on tv often enough or that he is urban based?

So...is the reason no one has responded is b/c no one knows who the guy is? That would explain why know one talks about him here.

The name was familiar but I couldn't put a finger on who he was until I saw him on MSNBC this morning, commenting on the earthquake. Ah, so THAT's the guy.

I had never heard of him until I saw a TV program on Discovery Channel(?) that featured him last year. But that was a show about our surveillance society and privacy issues. I don't know about his bona fides regarding preparedness, but I was certainly impressed that I learned some new things in that hour that I did not know before, and I think I'm pretty current on privacy issues. So, someone had done their homework, I think

That said, he seems to have this very intense persona (but maybe he's a real teddy bear in real life), so I think you either love him or hate him. I definitely wouldn't expect to see him kicking back and playing the harmonica like Les.

Never heard of the guy before this. Checked on Wikipedia and if nothing else he is very good at self promotion .

- Eric

Edwards,Edwards? Isn't that the Big Bearded Guy on Little House on the prairie?:)

The show was "Track me if you can". You can find the entire show on Youtube. It's hard to judge someone based on one show, but there wasn't anything that immediately triggered my BS meter. But most of the show seemed to be mostly common sense advice anyway.

I don't think he really specializes is wilderness survival, that's probably why there isn't much discussion about him. I wouldn't even compare him to Les or Bear since he seems to have different a different focus.

Well thanks guys. Like I said, I have no opinion +/- but have seen maybe 3-4 things he has done on MSM as news interest and commenter. I first saw him a couple years back when one of the info babes on fox, Ainsley Earhardt, (who is the hottest BTW), did a short 5-7 minute segment on preparedness in NYC. He carries a backpack like I do so I somewhat remember him from that but mostly from Ainsley being so hot and talking about prepping. They also showed his stockpile of food and supplies in his apartment and how he used situational awareness around him to avoid conflict on the street.

Wasn't there another guy 3-4 years back, a white guy, kinda neebish who decided he was going to become a preparedness expert, went to a bunch of schools, roughed it outdoors for a couple of months then wrote a book about it that all the literary wonks loved?

That sounds like Neil Strauss. I saw an article he wrote about the research he did prior to writing his book, but it sounds like his main purpose for doing all of it was to write a book, not to really learn or teach anything related to preparedness. It didn't interest me enough to actually read his book.