The Team
Overseas Expeditions |
UK Programmes |
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| Georgia Spink Expedition Manager |
Justin Tarrant UK Manager of Youth Personal Development |
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| Charlie
Eustace Expedition Manager |
Carl Blunden UK Programme Coordinator |
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Apprentice Expedition Manager |
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Support Team |
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| Richard Mayon-White Commercial Director |
Peter Harvey Managing Director |
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| Christine Cooper Finance Manager |
Kim Hurley Resources Manager |
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Dr Matt Ladbrook Company Doctor |
Elaine Brown |
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Dr Caroline Baugh |
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Wilderness dog |
UK Programmes
Justin joined WE in November 2008 and manages the UK programmes. Justin's previous life saw him running an electrical engineering company, and in a bid to escape the office took on a number of outdoor qualifications including his summer Mountain Leader Award, Single Pitch Award and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming). He used these skills to form an outdoor activity development company, and then made the move to Wilderness Expertise. Justin has yet to expand his travel wings to the wider globe, but spends lots of time hill-walking, climbing, mountain biking and generally getting muddy in the UK.
Overseas Expeditions
Georgia joined WE in late 2007 and has taken on the role of Expedition Manager working closely with the other members of the Overseas Team. Originally (and proudly!) from Whitby in North Yorkshire, she defected to the South due to a job in the bar industry. When working late nights and weekends became more pain than pleasure, she took the not too distant leap into the wine sales industry. Whilst in the role Georgia was able to pursue her interest in water sports and joined a local Dragon Boat Team. One year later she was representing Great Britain and had become a World Champion! This radical life-changing moment made Georgia re-think what she wanted from her work life and so she went back to university to study Sports Leadership.
This led to Georgia discovering Wilderness Expertise and she spent a hectic summer getting to know the company. It wasn't long before she'd worked her way in permanently and is now a very happy member of the team.
Georgia has been lucky enough to travel to several countries, including America, Canada, Mexico, Hong Kong, China, Australia, New Zealand, and numerous places in Europe – but she is yet to conquer the big ones of Africa and India. Her honeymoon in late 2008 will hopefully cross one of those off her to do list though!
Georgia is passionate about travel and sport and knows only too well about the fulfilment, excitement and challenges that both can provide. She hopes to venture to many new places whilst on board at WE and try out some new sports – she is already becoming quite proficient with a squash racket!
Charlie
Eustace 
Charlie's love of travel took wings when she headed to Argentina for a few
months during her Gap year; living with a family on a ranch, teaching English
and trying to learn Spanish. By the time she left Aberdeen University with
a Physical Geography BSc, her love of travel and the outdoors had been firmly
established and she knew that she wanted to combine both of these interests
in her future work.
In between travel to both Central and South America, Charlie spent 18 months
working for an overseas expedition provider where she was lucky enough to
lead an expedition to South Africa. Following this, she spent time in Central
America volunteering as a volcano guide where all the money made from the
clients went to a local charity for street children.
On her return, Charlie joined the Wilderness Expertise team as an Expedition
Manager, putting to good use her knowledge of the expedition world and overseas
travel. In her spare time she tries to take to the hills and do as much
outdoorsy stuff as living in the south of England will allow!
Support Team
Richard
Mayon-White 
Richard has many years experience in developing companies and managing teams,
in both large organisations and smaller companies. Prior to joining Wilderness
Expertise, Richard managed the operations of a national sailing school on
the South Coast of England. His role within ECG is as overall business manager
working across all the satellite units of the Group.
In his spare time Richard has travelled extensively, including climbing Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua. A commercially endorsed RYA Yachtmaster, he has skippered yachts in the Fastnet Race and Three Peaks Yacht Race. He now concentrates his efforts on triathlon and offshore yacht racing and in early 2006, he rowed across the Atlantic with his fiancee setting a record time for a couple in the race.
Peter
Harvey 
Peter is passionate about youth expeditions and a believer in the personal development benefits of outdoor education. In 1995 he set up Wilderness Expertise and has been involved ever since. His expertise in remote travel has led him to working with a number of different companies e.g. BP, Rio Tinto, EarthWatch and the Royal Geographical Society.
His work in the youth expedition industry has involved founding the Expedition Providers Association and supporting the Young Explorers' Trust, which he currently chairs. He was also part of the technical committee for the British Standard for overseas expeditions (BS 8848) and is currently co-chair of the ISO for Adventure Tourism.
Peter is a qualified mountaineer and has run personal development expeditions for young adults all over the world.
Peter has also worked as a remote medical practitioner and still gets out on adventure races when he can. Peter lives in Aldershot with his wife Claudia and dog Talisker, when he is not off traveling!
Catherine
Rogers
Catherine graduated with an LLB (Law Degree) in 1985 and spent several years
establishing a successful career in Corporate Treasury.
However the call of the outdoors was strong and in 1991 Catherine gave up her suit to work for Raleigh International in South America. 5 years later with numerous expeditions under her belt to places like Papua New Guinea and Patagonia she was to be found managing a bird watching resort in Guyana with no gas or electricity!
It was at this point that Catherine met Peter Harvey and they found they shared an enthusiasm for outdoor education. In the summer of 1997 Catherine joined him as a Director when they started the expedition and UK courses business, which has now grown into Wilderness Expertise.
Currently experiencing a career break to have three children, Catherine continues to take an active interest in the development and smooth running of the business. Having recently attained her Masters in Neuro Linguistic Programming she hopes to incorporate her skills into the UK-based training given to the young adults prior to their expeditions.
Christine
Cooper
Chris joined Provident Life in 1973 for what she believed to be a stopgap.
Little was she to know that she was going to spend the next 27 years helping
the business evolve and progress. Eventually the time came to make a break
and Chris joined the team in 2000 to become the finance manager. Be nice
to her – she pays all our bills!
Nicola
Conway 
A New Zealander, Nicky has spent most of her life in the outdoors and is
passionate about travel. She graduated from Wellington's Victoria University
with degrees in maths and accountancy before taking to the open road.
Nicky has travelled to more than 40 countries and enjoyed many adventures along the way. Prior to joining Wilderness Expertise, she worked for Explore Worldwide (Europe's leading Adventure Travel Company) and has lead over 50 tours in a variety of countries across the globe.
After 3 and a half years "on the road", Nicky took up the post of Operations Manager for Explore where her skills and experience were put to good use in training new Leaders and managing their existing product. Nicky is a bit of a chameleon in that she worked as in accountancy earlier in her life, and after working for Wilderness Expertise as an Expedition Manager for Wilderness Expertise, Nicky re-discovered her love of numbers and has moved across to Finance!
In her spare time, Nicky loves to trek in the mountains and even spent her honeymoon traversing the Bernese Oberland in the Swiss Alps
Kim Hurley 
Kim joined us in 2010 after emigrating from Zambia. He was born and bred on a tobacco farm in Zimbabwe, is the father of 3 and has a passion for nature and the outdoors. After the evacuation of farms in Zimbabwe, Kim worked in Resource Management in Harare and Johannesburg and managed an estate in Zambia.
Kim brings his African passion with him and loves fishing, white water rafting, canoeing and photography. He now lives in the picturesque countryside of Berkshire and enjoys long country walks where he can get to know the different bird calls, flora and fauna of the UK. Somewhat different to Africa but great none the less!
Elaine Brown 
Elaine’s career began with a spell in the RAF as a photographer although the majority of her time was taken up by her athletics. As a competing track athlete Elaine experienced success and inspiration later becoming an athletics coach working with inner city youths in Manchester. Through this work Elaine became a passionate supporter of Manchester’s bid for the 2000 Olympics. The air force career as a photographer did have it’s own impact however and Elaine continued to earn a living as a photographer and later as an Operations Manager of a fleet of photographers for several national companies.
Elaine’s career progressed into Key Accounts Management and sales for Fuji Film UK after she earned her degree in Psychology at Manchester University. This promotion also saw Elaine relocate south to the beautiful Wiltshire borders where she still lives today . A high flying corporate career came with pressures, however, and inadvertently introduced Elqaine to Rock Climbing as a form of stress relief! The sport soon became her passion and a momentous decision was made to leave the trappings of a corporate life and to focus once again on developing youths through sport, this time using outdoor education as a medium.
This decision was made eight years ago and Elaine has been a lively and positive facilitator in many different youth settings since. She is equally at home in a class room or lecture theatre delivering learning models or in the forest delivering survival skills.
Elaine’s newest appointment ia as trainer liaison with the Wilderness Expertise team. This role will see her supporting the professional development of the freelance trainers who work at the coal face of Wilderness Expertise; but will by no means see her reducing her participation in youth development programmes.
Dr
Caroline Baugh 
Caroline qualified as a doctor in 1998 and rapidly developed an interest
in emergency and pre-hospital care. She has worked in various hospitals
in London, gaining experience in a number of different specialities, from
Accident and Emergency to Anaesthetics, Intensive Care, Paediatrics and
High Risk Obstetrics. She is ALS, ATLS and APLS qualified.
This, and a Diploma in Tropical Medicine, at least partially prepared her for a two-year post, working as the Medical Director for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in Northern Sudan. This entailed the medical management of a large country programme – treating a variety of diseases including Severe Malnutrition, Malaria, Leishmaniasis, Tuberculosis, HIV, and many others. She was responsible for the medical planning and implementation of MSF’s emergency health and nutrition programme in response to the ongoing crisis in Darfur, the largest ever MSF response.
When not at work, she tries to get as far away from it all as possible, usually either by heading out sailing or by walking up some hill or other. She recently skied over 600 km in the Arctic on an endurance race to the Magnetic North Pole – adding to her first hand knowledge of medicine in rather extreme and unusual environments!
Talisker is a pedigree collie cross, and owns Peter Harvey. Talisker's interest in personal development has resulted in him training Peter very well so that he gets food and a juicy bone to order. Talisker is interested in chasing things (whether they're moving objects or not) and is interested in a career in the outdoors.
