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Chris McNamara
SuperTopo staff member
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Topic Author's Original Post - Oct 31, 2008 - 12:56pm PT
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 28, 2008
Media Contact:
Brian Thysell, Director
The Rowell Award
c/o The Yosemite Fund
155 Montgomery St., Suite 1104
San Francisco, CA 94104
415-434-1782, ext. 329
brian@rowellaward.com
THE ROWELL AWARD FOR THE ART OF ADVENTURE SEEKS
NOMINEES
San Francisco, CA The Rowell Legacy Committee is currently accepting nominations for The
Rowell Award for the Art of Adventure which will honor that adventurer whose artistic passion
illuminates the wild places of the world, and whose accomplishments significantly benefit both the
environment and the people who inhabit these lands and regions. Nominations will be accepted
from now through December 31, 2008 and can be sent via email, fax or regular mail. The $15,000
annual cash award will be presented to an individual selected by a panel of active and influential
members of the outdoor adventure world at the annual Rowell Lecture Series in spring 2009 at an
event in San Francisco. This event is co-presented by The Yosemite Fund and the Commonwealth
Club of California. For more information about the Rowell Award and to obtain a nomination
form, please visit http://www.rowellaward.com/award.htm#p7EPMc1_1
In August 2002, famed adventurers, writers and photographers of wild places Galen and Barbara
Rowell died tragically in a plane crash near their home in Bishop, California.. The Rowell Legacy
Committee was formed to commemorate the lives and preserve the spirit of the Rowells. Its hope
is that Galen and Barbaras work and the award will inspire in others the love of the human
experience in the environment and the desire to protect the wild and special places on our planet.
The Committee is excited to present this unique award to an individual who exemplifies the
hallmarks of Galen and Barbara adventure, art and giving back.
The Rowell Legacy Committee Honorary Chairs include: Conrad Anker, Tom Brokaw, Greg
Mortenson, Rick Ridgeway and Erik Weihenmayer.
The Rowell Award Judging Panel includes: Conrad Anker, Richard Blum, Dick Dorworth, Frans
Lanting, Doug McConnell, Chris McNamara, Duane Raleigh, Corey Rich, Nicole Rowell Ryan,
and Steven Werner.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Oct 31, 2008 - 08:36pm PT
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adventurous art bump
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Chris McNamara
SuperTopo staff member
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Topic Author's Reply - Dec 26, 2008 - 01:30pm PT
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nominations end in 5 days. get them in!
here is a cool article on past Rowell Speaker Greg Mortenson
Military Finds an Unlikely Adviser in School-Building Humanitarian
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
Washington
Greg Mortenson, a humanitarian and co-author of the best-selling book "Three Cups of Tea," has a surprising new job: advising the U.S. military on how to fight Islamic extremism.
Mr. Mortenson is a former mountain climber who has built 78 schools in remote, poverty-stricken parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. His foundation, the Central Asia Institute, also runs 48 other schools in refugee camps in the region. More than 28,000 children in the two countries attend Mr. Mortenson's schools.
In recent months, Mr. Mortenson has begun a second career as a guru of sorts for the military. In November, he was invited to the Pentagon for a private meeting with Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In December, he flew to Florida to talk to senior officers from the secretive Special Operations Command, which directs elite units like the Army's Delta Force.
View Full Image
Photo courtesy of Central Asia Institute
Mr. Mortenson believes providing a moderate education to young Muslims is the most effective way to curb the growth of Islamic extremism.
Gen. David Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, read Mr. Mortenson's book, which recounts his school-building efforts, and recommended it to his staff.
Mr. Mortenson's popularity in military circles stems from a shift in thinking about the war in Afghanistan. In the war's first years, top commanders focused on working with the Afghan central government. But with the insurgency worsening and the Kabul government struggling, many senior officers have begun to seek Mr. Mortenson's advice on how to build stronger relationships with village elders and tribal leaders.
Several of the officers said they have also come to share Mr. Mortenson's belief that providing young Muslims with a moderate education is the most effective way of curbing the growth of Islamic extremism.
"Education is the long-term solution to fanaticism," says Col. Christopher Kolenda, who commanded an Army brigade in a part of eastern Afghanistan where Mr. Mortenson founded two schools. "As Greg points out so well, ignorance breeds hatred and violence."
The long counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have forced the military to transform itself from an organization focused mainly on killing enemies to one that devotes equal attention to rebuilding war-shattered societies. U.S. troops in the two countries run jobs programs, provide medical assistance, and work to rehabilitate captured militants. "Nation-building," a phrase once scorned by many senior officers, is now a central part of the U.S. strategy.
In an interview, Mr. Mortenson, 50 years old, said he respected the military's willingness to admit past mistakes and seek new ideas about how to accomplish its objectives in Afghanistan and in the broader war on terror.
"I get some criticism from the NGO community, who tell me I shouldn't talk to the military at all," he said. "But the military has a willingness to change and adapt that you don't see in other parts of the government."
Mr. Mortenson didn't always have a high opinion of the U.S. military. "Three Cups of Tea" details how his initial support for the war in Afghanistan faded after he read accounts of the civilians who died in American airstrikes or after accidentally touching unexploded U.S. bombs.
In early 2002, he was invited to the Pentagon to address a small gathering of uniformed officers and civilian officials. As he recounted in the book, he told the audience that the $840,000 spent on each of the Tomahawk cruise missiles fired into Afghanistan could have been used to build dozens of schools. "Which do you think will make us more secure?" he asked them.
Afterward, Mr. Mortenson wrote, a man in a civilian suit offered to secretly funnel him $2.2 million in military funds. "We could make it look like a private donation from a businessman in Hong Kong," the man told him.
Mr. Mortenson wrote that he seriously considered the offer because the money would have allowed him to build at least 100 more schools. In the end, though, he decided to turn it down.
"I realized my credibility in that part of the world depended on me not being associated with the American government, especially its military," he wrote.
Mr. Mortenson still refuses to take any money from the military. The Central Asia Institute has an annual budget of $2.8 million, virtually all of which is raised through small individual donations. Last year, the Pentagon offered Mr. Mortenson $2.8 million, which would have doubled the foundation's funding, but he says he turned it down.
"The conditions would have stipulated that they could decide where the schools go, and I couldn't accept that," he said.
Still, Mr. Mortenson's relationship with the military continues to deepen. In the past year, he has spent time with Marines at California's Camp Pendleton and Special Operations troops at their U.S. base. He has also spoken to cadets and airmen at the Naval Academy in Maryland and at the Air Force Academy in Colorado.
After high school, Mr. Mortenson spent a few years as an Army medic. "It's a bit strange to be back in that world," he said. "But there is a positive learning curve in the military."
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Chris McNamara
SuperTopo staff member
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 2, 2009 - 03:22pm PT
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More great press about Greg Mortenson and Central Asia Institute
Happy New Year.
This is to let you know about Central Asia Institute / Three Cups of Tea book and Pennies For Peace Program recent media. If you are so inclined, please tell family, friends and collegues, and if you want to comment on the websites, it is much appreciated. My apologies for sending out a mass email as our office is off for New Year. Thanks for your support and making a difference.
Blessings of Peace for 2009.
Greg Mortenson
Central Asia Institute
On Friday, January 2nd, USA TODAY Travel section has a article on Central Asia Institute and Three Cups of Tea
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2009-01-01-three-cups-of-tea_N.htmUSA See article below or link to website
On Sunday, January 4th, CBS Sunday Morning will do a 14 minute piece featuring CAI, Col. Kolenda (US Army commander who was in charge of Forward Operating Base Naray, Kunar province, Afghanistan for 14 months, and Rockford, IL schoolchildren and community who did a Pennies For Peace program that raised $ 100,000. The show runs on CBS affiliates on Sunday Mornings usually between 7 - 10 AM (the late Charles Kuralt was a previous host)
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/sunday/main3445.shtml
Yochi Dreazen - Pentagon correspondent for the Wall Street Journal wrote article below:
Wall Street Journal
Friday, December 26, 2008
Military Finds an Unlikely Adviser in School-Building Humanitarian
Yochi Dreazen - Pentagon correspondent
http://s.wsj.net/article/SB123024938351734255.html?mod=article-outset-box
OUTSIDE magazine did a feature story in December 2008, which will be posted online after January 4, 2009.
USA TODAY
By Laura Bly, Travel Editor
Friday, January 2, 2009
'Three Cups of Tea' author finds new mountains to climb
http://s.wsj.net/article/SB123024938351734255.html?mod=article-outset-box
WASHINGTON Globe-trotting humanitarian Greg Mortenson, co-author of the best-selling memoir Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace
One School at a Time, keeps a reminder pasted to his bathroom mirror back home in Bozeman, Mont.: "When your heart speaks, take good notes."
Mortenson's own heart started hollering 15 years ago, when the exhausted mountaineer lost his way in northeastern Pakistan's untrammeled Karakoram Range. After stumbling nearly 60 miles down a glacier to the Muslim hamlet of Korphe where he was welcomed as the first foreigner the 400 villagers had encountered he watched local children substitute mud-coated sticks for pencils in an apricot orchard that served as their only classroom.
Inspired by his parents' work to start a hospital and school on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, and by fellow climber Edmund Hillary's charitable work in the Nepalese Himalayas, Mortenson promised he would return to Korphe to build a school.
But unlike most well-meaning tourists touched by encounters with Third World poverty, Mortenson delivered on his pledge.
That unsuccessful shot at scaling Pakistan's K2, the world's second-highest mountain, changed Mortenson's life course from self-described "dirtbag climber" to literacy promoter, citizen diplomat and publishing sensation.
Since its publication in early 2006, Three Cups of Tea has sold more than 2.5 million copies in 29 languages; it's been on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list for 95 weeks. A young-readers' edition with an afterword by Mortenson's 12-year-old daughter, Amira, arrives this month.
His non-profit foundation, the Central Asia Institute (ikat.org), has built 78 schools serving 28,000 students in remote, politically volatile pockets of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and it runs nearly 50 others in regional refugee camps. Nearly all of its $2.8 million annual budget is funded by modest, individual donations many of them inspired by Mortenson's story during one of his roughly 150 appearances a year at an eclectic mix of college and high school campuses, churches and civic groups.
The former Army medic, 51, who will receive Pakistan's highest civil award next March, has even been tapped by the U.S. military. He has lectured at the Air Force, Naval and West Point academies, and he has shared his philosophy of curtailing Islamic extremism through education with such Pentagon brass as Gen. David Petraeus; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Adm. EricLarson, SOCOM commander (Special Operations).
The soft-spoken, 6-foot-4 Mortenson hasn't strapped on a crampon since his fateful 1993 trip. (Along with writing hundreds of letters and collecting pennies from his mother's Wisconsin grade-school students, Mortenson's initial fundraising included selling his beloved climbing equipment and an aging Buick he had nicknamed "La Bamba"). But the onetime adventure tour leader says he still has an incurable wanderlust, and the travel lessons learned on his transformational journey are still with him.
When he launched the K2 expedition in honor of his younger sister Christa, a frequent travel companion until her death of an epileptic seizure on her 23rd birthday, "I was singular in my focus to reach the summit. It was linear and logical, and very Western," Mortenson says in Washington while juggling a family vacation with Pentagon and Capitol Hill briefings about his foundation's work.
"When I failed (less than 2,000 feet shy of the summit), it was humbling," he says. "But that failure opened my eyes to this incredibly beautiful area and the people who live there. If I'd reached my goal, none of it would have happened."
Too many adventure travelers, Mortenson says, "try to program too much. We become insular and encapsulated.
We have our Gore-Tex and our satellite phones and our antibiotics, and we're always following an agenda.
"I'm not saying you need to travel the way I do," says Mortenson, whose exploits have included surviving an eight-day armed kidnapping by the Taliban in Pakistan's northwest frontier tribal areas and escaping a firefight with feuding Afghan warlords by hiding under putrid animal hides in a truck heading for a leather-tanning factory.
His hard-earned advice: Travel light (he spends about four or five months a year in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan with little more than a battered L.L. Bean carry-on). Don't be afraid to make mistakes and get out of your comfort zone. And carve out a few unscheduled days to interact with residents, such as sharing family stories and a cup of tea with mountain porters or stopping at a local school.
"When Gen. Petraeus read Three Cups of Tea," Mortenson says, "he sent me an e-mail with three bullet points of what he'd gleaned from the book: Build relationships, listen more, and have more humility and respect. And you can put that all into a travel context, too."
(c) 2008 USA TODAY.
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GhoulweJ
Trad climber
Sacramento, CA
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Tami, trying to decide if that was a man hater post.
FYI, Greg does focus on teaching girls.
You should contribut to the cause: buy and read his book. It is fantastic.
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