Board of Directors

Mark Wellman

Mark Wellman, accomplished athlete and outdoor adventurer, has been a mountaineer since the age of 12. He has ascended over 50 peaks in the Sierra Nevada as well as many summits in the French Alps. Mark encountered a freak accident on a descent in the John Muir Wilderness in 1982, which left him a paraplegic. Continuing his passion for climbing, in 1989, with climbing partner Mike Corbett, Mark made history as the first paraplegic to ascend the 3,000 foot face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, and in 1991, conquered Yosemite’s other big wall, Half Dome.

A former member of the United States Disabled Ski Team, competing in two Paralympics, Mark is also know for his extreme downhill skiing and whitewater kayaking adventures. In the spring of 1993, Mark skied 50 miles to be the first paraplegic, unassisted, to sit-ski across the 10,000 foot Tioga Pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. From 1986-1991, Mark worked as a full time Interpretive Ranger and as Director of the Disabled Access Program in Yosemite National Park. In 1996, honored by the Paralympic Committee, Mark ascended a 120-foot rope with the flaming torch to light the Olympic Cauldron.

His autobiography is titled Climbing Back. He has designed adaptive equipment and has developed programs to inspire and motivate others, including films highlighting a variety of athletes with disabilites. He speaks for Disabled Sports USA, and lends his name to the Governor’s Committee on Employment for the Disabled. He has received numerous awards, such as The 1989 Senate Resolution, Arete Ward, Timpany Center Award, American Red Cross Summit, National Athletic Awards and the FDR Award for Courage in Sports.

Erik Weihenmayer

Erik Weihenmayer has become a celebrated and accomplished athlete, despite losing his vision at the age of 13. Redefining what it means to be blind, Erik has transformed the image of blindness and opened up the minds of people around the world. He has never let his blindness interfere with his passion for an exhilarating and fulfilling life.

On May 25, 2001, Erik became the first blind climber in history to reach the summit of the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest. At the age of 33, on September 5, 2002, Erik became one of less than 100 individuals to climb all of the Seven Summits – the highest peaks on each of the seven continents – when he stood on the top of Australia ’s Mt. Kosciusko.

Erik continues to seek out new adventures. In September 2003, he completed Primal Quest, the toughest multi-sport race in the world – 9 days, 460 miles, 60,000 feet of elevation gain, no time outs. Last fall, Erik, along with his Everest teammates, led a group of blind Tibetan teenagers to 21,000 ft. on the north face of Mt. Everest as an educational outreach project to carve out opportunities for young people around the globe, no matter what their challenges.

Erik is a former middle school teacher and wrestling coach who has made his way onto the cover of Time, Outside and Climbing magazines. He has also been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, NBC’s Today, the Tonight Show and Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. He is the author of the best selling autobiography, Touch the Top of the World. He is the recipient of numerous awards, among them the prestigious National Courage Award and the 2002 ESPN ESPY award.

Hugh Herr, PhD

Hugh Herr is Assistant Professor of the MIT Media Laboratory and the MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology. His primary research objective is to apply principles of muscle mechanics, neural control and human biomechanics to guide the designs of biomimetic robots, human rehabilitation devices, and augmentation technologies that amplify the endurance and strength of humans. Professor Herr has built elastic shoes and leg exoskeletons that increase aerobic endurance in walking and running.

In the field of human rehabilitation, his research group has developed gait adaptive knee prostheses for transfemoral amputees and variable impedance ankle-foot orthoses for patients suffering from drop foot, a gait pathology caused by stroke, cerebral palsy, and multiple sclerosis. In addition to being an inventor and scientist, Hugh is an avid mountain climber. During a mountain climbing outing in January of 1982, he became stranded on Mount Washington in New Hampshire for nearly four days in –20o F temperatures and blizzard conditions. Severe frostbite damage took its toll on his lower legs, and both of his feet had to be amputated six inches below the knee.

After the accident, he dreamed of being able to climb mountains once again. But how? The answer was technology; he developed specialized prosthetic feet that enabled him to not only return to his chosen sport of mountain climbing, but to climb at a more advanced level than he had achieved before the accident. Prosthetic feet with high toe stiffness made it possible to stand on small rock edges the width of a coin, and titanium spiked feet helped him to ascend steep ice walls. He made his height adjustable to avoid awkward body positions and to grab hand and foot holds previously out of reach. He could be as short as five feet or as tall as eight feet.

From this experience, Hugh realized that technology can make a profound impact on the lives of people struggling with physical disability. He was struck by the lack of technological sophistication in prosthetic limbs. Commercially available artificial limbs were generally inflexible and non-adaptive, making them uncomfortable and difficult to use. These realizations convinced him to pursue a career in science and engineering so that he could be in a position to advance assistive technology and to improve the quality of life of physically challenged people.

Mike Savicki

There are some dates in a person’s life that have special significance. For Mike Savicki, one ofthose dates was November 3, 1990. On that day, shortly after beginning flight training with the United States Navy to become an F-14 fighter pilot, Mike sustained a spinal cord injury from a dive into the waters off Pensacola Beach in Florida. His injury came just several months after he graduated from Tufts University and was awarded the Outstanding Naval Aviation Candidate Award from the Navy ROTC Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In the last nineteen years, Mike has accomplished more than most people do in a lifetime. Mike moved to North Carolina to pursue an MBA degree at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and became only the second student in a wheelchair to successfully complete the rigorous program. In 1994, Mike delivered the Commencement Address to his graduating class and shortly thereafter, moved to Charlotte, to begin work as a management consultant. He left the corporate world to serve as deputy director of a sport non-profit before going in to business for himself as a writer and consultant. He has profiled top NASCAR drivers and professional athletes, politicians, actors and comedians. He is also passionate about veterans’ issues and promotes the accomplishments of those who chose to serve. Of the many accolades Mike earned for his work, he is most proud of receiving the Tufts University Distinguished Alumni Award during the University’s 2000 Global Symposium entitled Global Games: Sports, Politics and Society.

Mike is an athlete, too. Before his injury, Mike was a three sport varsity athlete at Franklin High School, a varsity soccer player at Tufts University, a semi-pro soccer player, windsurfer, sailor, skier and golfer. Mike has completed over 60 marathons (including seventeen Boston Marathons) and has participated in triathlon since 1999. He is a former USHF handcycling national criterium champion and, in 2001, Mike earned a spot in the United States Quad Rugby Association and US Paralympics High Performance Training Program. He spent three years as a national team member competing for a spot on the Athens 2004 Paralympic team. He is the winner of the quad wheelchair division of the 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009 Boston Marathons and has been officially recognized as the only person to ever complete the Boston Marathon both on foot and in a wheelchair.

Mike is an accomplished disabled athlete, business owner, tireless and well-connected advocate, creative thinker, passionate motivator, meticulous organizer and aspiring drummer. He was recently featured on the Cheerios box in a national program honoring the disabled veterans in sports. Mike is a testament to the success that hard work, persistence and determination can bring to a life otherwise devastated. He lives by the water in North Carolina and Massachusetts.

Bill Barkeley

Bill Barkeley’s story serves not only as proof of the incredible advances in the hearing technology, but also as a great motivator to other people –with and without disabilities – to reach for their dreams. Bill is one of 20,000 people in the United States and 100,000 worldwide, who suffer from Usher Syndrome, a condition characterized by hearing impairment and progressive blindness. Bill recently completed a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa as a project for the deaf-blind. He has been featured on local, regional, national and international media such as WOODTV 8, The Grand Rapids Press, Faith Magazine, Hear The World, Healthy Hearing.com, Sierra Club Radio and Good Morning America. A film documentary by Josh Levine Walk Your Own Path – Bill Barkeley’s climb of Mount Kilimanjaro has just been released to the adventure film circuit.

Bill Barkeley graduated from the University of Southern California in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. Bill has been an employee of Steelcase Inc. a Fortune 500 company for 23 years with leadership positions in sales and marketing in Seattle, San Francisco and Grand Rapids. He is past president of the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired. He is on the executive committee of the Hearing Loss Association of America (Grand Rapids chapter). He is on the Board of Directors of Metro Health Systems which is the fourth largest employer in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area.

Bill has also started to do motivational speaking around the country to corporations, schools and non-profits on the climb. Corporate engagements focus on the climb and four major themes of Overcoming Adversity, Planning, Excellence and Teamwork. Upcoming non-profit engagements include the State of Ohio Speech Pathology and Educational Audiology Coalition and the American Doctors of Audiology convention (Las Vegas - November 2008).

Jim Goldsmith

Jim Goldsmith is a Co-Founder of the No Barriers program and events and now a Director Emeritus. He is an avid road biker and has been a passionate mountaineer for much of his life. In addition to hiking and climbing in the United States, he has hiked in many mountain ranges in the world. In 1990, after 5 years of research and field work, he co-authored and self-published the most comprehensive English speaking cultural and touring guide to the Dolomites of Italy. His interests include physical and natural history. Jim is retired from his 50-year career in real estate development and asset management. He has four children and eleven grandchildren.

I am proud to have been a part of No Barriers since its inception in 2002. It is my firm hope that No Barriers will continue to expand the horizons and hope of all people with disabilities and to encourage their participation in the out-of-doors. The No Barriers concept is unique in that it promotes the communication between those with disabilities, their care givers, and the scientists and innovators developing systems to facilitate mobility. Its goal is to motivate all of us to strive to reach our new, often-unknown, potentials through appreciation of and activity in the outdoors. Jim Goldsmith, January, 2008.