Greg Thomsen
Greg Thomsen is one of the most successful and well-respected leaders in the outdoor industry. A close friend to legendary climber and writer John Long, Greg has had almost every job imaginable in the outdoor industry. In 1972, he co-founded Wilderness Experience, the first outdoor company to go public and be traded not he NASDAQ stock exchange. In 1987, Nike hired him as Global Director of Marketing for Apparel, where he created the ACG (All Conditions Gear). In 1990, Greg co-founded the American Sports Group (ASG), where for almost 20 years his company created thousands of products for hundreds of companies. In 2007, after owning several outdoor brands such as Mountainsmith, Youngstown, and Detours, he sold everything and lived a nomadic life, traveling around the world for one year with his family - "It was the best year of my life" he says. For the last decade, Thomsen has served as the Chief Outdoor Officer of adidas Outdoor, growing the brand exponentially in the U.S. In 2019, Greg received the Inspiration Awards Lifetime Achievement.
3 words to describe Nature?
Life. Love. Breathtaking.
3 things Nature taught you?
Overall nature has taught me to be mindful and to live in the moment.
Living in natural environments has taught me both the fragility and the strength of life and to not to take either for granted.
Nature has shown me that “everything” is connected.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The Sierra
Bhutan
Hawaii
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Small and insignificant but free and limitless.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
At home and at peace. Comfortable and calm.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Amazed at the power of nature. Flying over a volcano they appear to be alive and on a mission of creation.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
I love both sunrise and sunsets, they make me feel there is magic in the universe. The ultimate cycle of life.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
I’m am ...thrilled by the natural power I feel when I hear thunder and see lightning. Thunder comforts me and reminds me that the real world is alive.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
A bit disoriented. I am not in love with howling wind as it makes me anxious of what is coming.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
I am absolutely a Mountain person! I feel most comfortable and alive in big mountain environments. Forest and Deserts calm me and Oceans generally frighten me to my inner core with their enormous power and unpredictability.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
Nature is absolutely a 10 for my well-being. Without Nature what else is there?
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
My father loved the outdoors, hiking, fishing and camping. Our family spent every summer camping in the Mammoth Lakes area in the Sierra. It was what we did as a family since I was 2 years old, so it holds a very special place in my childhood memories. When I was 12 and my brother was 16 we decided we would try to climb to the top of Crystal Crag, a prominent granite spire overlooking the Mammoth Lakes area. We summited after some difficult steep and exposed 5th class solo climbing and descended the face as our parents were having lunch below the crag at a dock side restaurant on lake Mary. At a table next to my parents a man and his wife, watched our precarious descent, and leaned over to asked my father “what kind of parents would let their children do such a dangerous climb”
It was at that moment my parents realized it was my brother and me descending the face. Of course they didn’t tell the outraged couple.
When we arrived back at our family tent we were first scolded for taking such a risk but it then turned to laughter as they told us the story about the horrified onlookers from the next table and not telling them that those unsupervised risk takers were their children! It became a family story that was retold for years to come, over much laughter and love. Both my brother and I went on to more and more serious climbing adventures and exploration experiences around the World that has both defined and enriched our life’s path.
Stefan Simcowitz
Stefan Simchowitz is a controversial Los Angeles based art collector, art curator, art advisor and founder of Simco's Club, an art-collecting, selling, and promoting website dedicated to successful, young, and emerging artists around the world. In November 2015, he was ranked #95 in Art Review Magazine's POWER 100, a list of the "most influential people in the contemporary artworld." He was famously dubbed “The Art World’s Patron Satan” by the New York Times back in 2014. Journalist Andrew Goldstein of New York Magazine, Artnet, and Artspace, argues that Simcho is destabilizing outdated art-world archetypes that perpetuate dangerous myths about how art is distributed, displayed, and discussed.
After college, Stefan started a film production company responsible for a number of feature films and shorts, such as Darren Aronofsky's critically acclaimed drama, Requiem for a Dream. He co-founded the celebrity photo and video service, WireImage, which eventually sold to Getty Images in 2007 for $200 million.
Stefan is a vocal proponent of social media as a legitimate way of discovering, distributing, and popularizing the fine arts, primarily using Facebook and Instagram as platforms for self-promotion, discovering new artists, and endorsing those he already manages.
3 words to describe Nature?
Electron. Neutron. Proton
3 things Nature taught you?
We are all one and the same
Nature defines the rules of the game
Understand the end is not different to the beginning and you will be fine
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The hills of Tuscany
The sea of Liguria
The Blue Mountains
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Like going for a swim
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Going for a walk
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Like wishing I was getting a cold brew coffee and pastry
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Like an ancient human
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Getting inside
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Getting under the duvet
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Somewhere between the forest and the mountain
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
The game reserve, safari.
Liza Gershman
Best-Selling Author and Winner of the Gourmand Cookbook Award (2018), Liza Gershman has nearly two decades of industry experience working in all facets of Commercial and Editorial photography and writing, including 12 published books and hundreds of newspaper and magazine stories. She specializes in Lifestyle, Food, and Travel. Her passion for people, culture and cuisine, has taken her to more than 51 countries and 47 U.S. States during her career.
Her 12th book, Cuban Flavor, has garnered many accolades, and has been featured on CBS, in National Geographic, Travel & Leisure, Budget Travel, NPR and many additional local and national publications and radio shows. Liza was honored to speak for Talks At Google, and on the prestigious campuses of Twitter, Oracle, and Disney to name a few.
As a photographer and Art Director, she regularly teaches, writes and presents for celebrated companies: Creative Live and Canon USA. She was honored to nationally launch the 6D for Canon, and the T6. Prior to that she worked as the in-house Senior Digital Photographer for Williams-Sonoma and continues to freelance for clients such as Goldman Sachs, Hyatt Hotels, Restoration Hardware, Safeway, Party City, Getty Images, AirBnB, Visa. In 2010, Liza was Governor Jerry Brown's campaign photographer, and in 2014 was a photographer for the RedBull Youth America's Cup.
She has been a regular contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle Travel Section, writing tips on top destinations for a monthly column called “5 Places”, and continues to write about travel, food and culture in articles and book form.
Many of Liza’s notable clients include celebrity chefs, restaurants, wineries, beverage brands, fashion brands, spas and hotels.
3 words to describe Nature?
Beauty. Peace. Serenity
3 things Nature taught you?
How to go into my inner self
How to be still
How to observe
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The Russian River in Sonoma County
The beaches of Nantucket
The open skies of Wyoming
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Introspective
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Grounded and most like myself
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
In awe
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Lucky to be part of the world, inside of a painting
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Excited! I love a great storm as long as everyone is safe
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Like getting under covers
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Forest and lakes first, then ocean, then desert, but I love all of it!!!
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
11
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
Canoeing down the river. That's my happiest activity. Smelling the ferns and mint and redwood trees all around.
Richard Bangs
Richard Bangs is the co-founder / Chief Adventure Officer of Steller, a pioneer in travel, digital media, e-commerce and has been called the father of modern adventure travel. In the early 90s Richard produced the first internet travel site - MTSobek,, the first travel CD ROM - The Adventure Disc, and the first virtual expeditions - Terra Quest.
He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Mungo Park, a pioneering Microsoft travel publishing effort, and was part of the founding executive team of Expedia.com. He was the publisher of Expedia Travels Magazine, executive producer of Expedia Radio, and founder of Expedia Cafes. He served as president of Outward Bound, founded Well-Traveled.com for Slate, and was founding editor and executive producer of Great Escapes, another Microsoft Travel initiative. He ran and founded First and Best for MSN, and founded Sobek Expeditions, which in the early 1990s merged with Mountain Travel to become Mountain Travel Sobek.
He recently co-directed the IMAX Film, Mystery of the Nile, and co-authored the Putnam book of the same name. His recent book, The Lost River: A Memoir of Life, Death and the Transformation of Wild Water, won the National Outdoor Book Award in the literature category, and the Lowell Thomas Award for best book.
Richard executive produced and hosted the Emmy-winning PBS series, Richard Bangs’ Adventures with Purpose, and his companion book, Adventures with Purpose, won the 2007 best book award from NATJA. His latest books are Quest for the Sublime (2008), and Quest for the Kashah (2009).
In 2007, he won the Mark Dubois lifetime achievement conservation award and in 2008 the CINE Golden Eagle Award for the special, Quest for Kaitiakitanga, and six Tele Awards for Quest for the Nile, Quest for the Sublime, and Quest for the Kasbah. Quest for Kaitiakitanga was nominated for an Environmental Media Award (“The Green Oscars”) for best documentary, and won the annual Platinum Award from HSMAI (Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International). His film Quest for the Viking Spirit won the 2009 Gold Lowell Thomas award for best documentary; and the same award for 2010 for the India show. Also, the series won two Emmys in 2010 in the History/Culture categories.
In 2011 Richard won the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Gold Award for Hong Kong: Quest for the Dragon—2011; the 2011 CINE Golden Eagle Award for Greece: Quest for the Gods; and two Telly Awards for Hong Kong: Quest for the Dragon.
Richard’s show Quest for Harmony won the Gold in the Destination Marketing Category of the 2012 Travel Weekly Magellan Awards, as well as two Bronze Telly Awards, and the 2012 Lowell Thomas Award. His special, Richard Bangs’s South America: Quest for Wonder, won two Telly Awards for 2013; and the Cine Golden Eagle for 2013.
3 words to describe Nature?
Essentiality. Sublime. Divine.
I would add diversity, variety, irregularity, indefiniteness, and vastness, and the feelings they provoke.
3 things Nature taught you?
To be mindful of all living things.
To travel softly and responsibly.
That water always beats stone
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The curled lip of a rapid on a wild river
A steep and distant canyon
The full-moon rainbow above Victoria Falls
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Something on the other side of thought and language.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
A pleasing kind of stupor and imagination.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
A fizzy, faintly erotic feeling of terror. It is violence and terror mingled with exultation.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
A kind of supernatural calm that charms the senses and the mind into a forgetfulness of oneself and of everything else in the world.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
An alternation of hope and fear, an agitation in the heart, a reminder that life is more intensely lived the closer one gets to its extinction. I never feel so alive as when I sense the possibility of death.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
A tingling with a pulse, an unaccustomed tune that adds a new excitement to life. Elements of disturbance, awe, horror, risk, danger, and pleasure.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
A river person
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
12
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
My father never really cared much for the outdoors. He preferred a cozy chair and a fat book, a night at the movies, maybe a ball game on TV, certainly restaurant food. But one weekend when I was a small boy he took me camping. I don’t remember where he took me, but it was by a river, a swift-flowing stream, clear and crisp. I have a faint memory now that my dad had a difficult time setting up the tent, but somehow worked it out and he was proud of the task. With some soda pop and our fishing poles, we went down to the river to have one of those seminal father-son bonding experiences.
The air told me first that we were someplace special. It whooshed, delivering the cool message of a fast river on a hot summer day. Then a muffled sound came from behind, back at camp, and we turned around and could see through the trees that the tent had collapsed. My dad said something under his breath and started up the hill, then turned back to me and said, “Don’t go in the river!”
They were the wrong words.
At first I put my hand in the water to swish it around and was fascinated by the vitality, the power that coursed through my arm, into my chest, and up into my brain. I looked in the middle of the stream, where tiny waves burst into a million gems and then disappeared. It was magic, pure magic. I stepped into the river to my waist and felt the water wrap around and hug me and then tug at me like a dog pulling a blanket. Another step and the water reached my chest and pulled me down wholly into its vigorous embrace. I was being washed downstream.
Effortlessly, the current was carrying me away from confinement, toward new and unknown adventures. I looked down and watched as a color wheel of pebbles passed beneath me like a cascade of hard candy. After a few seconds I kicked my way to shore perhaps a hundred yards downstream. When I crawled back to land I had changed. My little trip down the river had been the most exhilarating experience of my life. I felt charged with energy, giddy, cleansed, and fresh, more alive than I could remember. I practically skipped back to the fishing poles and sat down with a whole new attitude, and secret.
When my father came back, he never noticed anything different. And I didn’t volunteer anything. The August sun had dried my shorts and hair, and I was holding my pole as though it had grown as an extension of my arm since he left. Only my smile was different—larger, knowing. I grew in that little trip, like corn in the night.
We didn’t catch any fish that day, but I caught something that would stay with me for years: a knowledge that the clearest way into the universe is off-the-path, upside-down, and downstream…