Steve Elkins started his professional career as the director of an outdoor and environmental education program for the Van Gorder-Walden School in Chicago.

While attending the Southern Illinois University and receiving a B.S in Earth Science, he conducted an archeological survey and test excavation of a rock shelter site he discovered.

Elkins's desire to incorporate his scientific interests with media production allowed him to film around the world on a great variety of programs with science related themes.

In 1994, while researching ideas for a production and subsequently filming in the Mosquitia region of Honduras, he became fascinated with the lost city legends pervasive to the area.

Elkins and Benenson[5] were selected as two of Foreign Policy Magazine's Leading Global Thinkers of the Year[6] for proving airborne lidar could successfully be used as a tool of discovery and exploration in extremely thick jungle canopy.

President Juan Orlando Hernández along with other officials, including the Minister of Science and Technology, visited the site accompanied by Elkins.