Huntington was the son of Dwight Huntington, a St. Louis attorney who as early as 1912 had begun promoting restoration of game birds and was active in the Game Conservation Society. It was his vision that led to the creation, by his son, of America's only gamekeepers' school, the Game Conservation Institute of Clinton, New Jersey. This school would eventually be acquired by the More Game Birds in America Foundation. It was that acquisition that led to John Huntington becoming an important player in the Foundation.

Bartley was More Game Birds' vice president and also the director of field operations. He was a man who liked to get his hands dirty and his feet wet, and he spent years touring waterfowl breeding grounds. He would eventually become the executive director of Ducks Unlimited, a post he would hold until 1962. Bartley had served with John Huntington during World War I, and both had gone to work for the senior Huntington at the Game Conservation Society soon after the war.

Of the men in the room, it was Joseph Knapp who was the captain behind the wheel, the coal in the furnace. Well educated and wealthy, Knapp had become enthralled with the idea that wildlife could be raised and managed following the European model, and that science could offer answers to the problems facing game birds. The European model depended largely on the artificial raising of birds to be released before the gun, and this was to be the focus of Knapp's—and More Game Birds'—solution. To that end, after founding More Game Birds in 1930, he directed that the organization take over Huntington's well-regarded gamekeepers' school. Although More Game Birds took over management, funds for its operation came from the deep pockets of Mr. Knapp himself.