Born in the Canadian prairies, I spent the first twenty years of my life in relative isolation from the world of international travel. I was raised in a good home to parents who worked hard and stayed together for the long haul. Normal was good but uneventful.

My educational background has been varied. After starting off with a diploma in Business Administration, testing the world of finance, my comfort zone would be found in the field of Outdoor Recreation with a major in wilderness leadership. It would have been a great career if I could have made it with part time or seasonal jobs but reality would tell a different story.

In my early 20s I did a sixteen kilometer backpacking trek into the magical valley of Kalalau on the island of Kauai. I remember vividly meeting a tarot card reader who had been camping there for a month. When my cards were read it was determined that “ travel and people “ would be the cornerstones in my future. I’ve always read that as being prophetic.

Six months after returning from this first tropical adventure the airline industry came calling. With an unexpected flurry of international airline expansion in 1979, I began thinking, “ Hmmm, take your love of outdoor adventure on a global level... we might be onto something here!” I seemed to find my calling in organizing expeditions into the remote rivers of Borneo, the Amazon and Papua New Guinea with the goal being the study of indigenous peoples and collecting tribal art. From camping in a cave with a hospitable family of Bedouins in the ancient city of Petra to sailing down the Nile on my own felucca, the adventures were peeling off the page.

Thirty years and one million time zones later eventually it began sounding better than it was feeling. You never get tired of Hong Kong, Sydney or London but you do get tired of being sick and tired. It was again time for a change in direction.