Star Trek: Enterprise producer Mike Sussman has been writing adventures set in Gene Roddenberry's universe since he was eight years old. Sussman was born in Philadelphia, but spent most of his youth in the Gulf Coast resort town of Sarasota, Florida. In the early 1980s, Sussman petitioned his local UHF station to resume airing syndicated episodes of the original Star Trek. While his campaign was unsuccessful, Sussman did receive a letter from the station's manager, advising him to (we're paraphrasing), "Get a life." After studying film and screenwriting at Florida State University, Sussman began his television career as a newscast producer for WWSB-TV, the Sarasota ABC affiliate. During his tenure, he produced the station's eleven o'clock news, as well as their 1992 Presidential Election coverage. He eventually relocated to Los Angeles, and was soon writing for KCAL-TV's Emmy Award-winning Prime 9 News.

Sussman made his first professional sale to the franchise in 1995, creating the story for the acclaimed Star Trek: Voyager episode "Meld." After several freelance sales, Sussman joined the writing staff of Voyager in its seventh season, co-writing such episodes as "Body and Soul," "Author, Author" and "Renaissance Man." He then joined the staff of the latest chapter in the Star Trek saga, Enterprise, writing or co-writing some of the series' most popular (and controversial) installments, including "Twilight," "Future Tense," "Regeneration" and the Vulcan trilogy finale, "Kir'Shara." All told, Sussman's name appears in the writing credits of more than 30 Star Trek episodes.