Board of Directors

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.

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 –20^o 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.

Malcolm Daly started climbing in 1969 during a summer road camp where he spent a week in the Tetons. He took a climbing lesson as part of the program, then took another, then another. He never looked back.  He moved to Colorado in 1973 to go to college at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins, where he earned a degree in Outdoor Recreation in 1978.  He spent many days climbing in Eldorado, Yosemite, Estes Park and Veedauwoo while he was trying to earn his college degree.

Upon graduation, he began his outdoor career in earnest,

working as a climbing guide, mountain shop employee and as a sales rep for various outdoor equipment companies. In April of 1992 Malcolm set off on his own and started Trango:USA as a distributor of high end climbing equipment. In 1998 Trango:USA and Stonewear Designs (Women’s climbing clothing) merged to form Great Trango Holdings. In 2002 GTHI acquired a climbing hold company called e-Grips. And here he is.

It’s been a rough but rewarding road with little financial incentive, lots of work, little sleep, a bit of climbing, and tons of great friends. In addition to climbing, he’s an avid skier, snowboarder, track skier, tele skier, runner, biker, kayaker, photographer and father. He’s coached the Junior Race Team (Alpine Skiing) at Eldora Mountain Resort for four years.

In May of 1999, while attempting a first ascent on Thunder Mountain in Alaska, Malcolm fell 200 feet shattering both legs and feet, and getting stranded for two days, alone on the ice. By the time help arrived, both of his feet were frostbitten and one eventually had to be amputated. In March of 2004, he had a massive heart attack and had to be resuscitated with a defibrillator and woke up in the back of the ambulance with the medics high-fiving and saying, ”Whew! That was close.”  “The heart attack didn’t kill me but it did do some permanent damage to my heart; so now I have a pacemaker and am slow on the hills.” As of this writing (May, 2005) Malcolm is back climbing, bike riding, kayaking and living large.

Mike Savicki There are some dates in a person’s life that have special significance. For Mike Savicki, one of those 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 seventeen 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. 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 50 marathons (including fifteen 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 was the winner of the quad wheelchair division of the 2005 and 2007 Boston Marathons and has been officially recognized as the only person to ever complete the Boston Marathon both on foot and in a wheelchairs.

Mike is an accomplished disabled athlete, business owner, tireless and well-connected advocate, creative thinker, passionate motivator, meticulous organizer and aspiring drummer. 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.