Marc Okrand has a Ph.D. in
linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley - he specialized in Indian
languages of the west coast, and has taught linguistics at University of California, Santa Barbara. He was a post-doctoral
fellow in the
Smithsonian Institute's Anthropology Department and is heavily involved in
closed captioning of network and syndicated television programs.
After creating the Klingon language for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and the Vulcan language used in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Okrand published The Klingon Dictionary in 1985, which outlines the grammar and vocabulary of the language and includes a mini-phrasebook in the back. To coincide with the dictionary's revised edition in 1992, he worked with Michael Dorn on an audiocassette entitled "Conversational Klingon" and released another tape called "Power Klingon" in 1993. His book The Klingon Way, a collection of Klingon proverbs, was released in 1996 and in 1997 he published Klingon for the Galactic Traveler to examine the language's diversity, technical terminology, idioms, and slang.
Source: http://www.startrek.com/library/klingon_exokr.asp
I knew Marc through the now-defunct online service GEnie and met him a couple of times, now almost ten years ago. In addition to being brilliant, he's also very funny and tremendously friendly and kind.