DEAN CARDINALE
Dean Cardinale is the owner of World Wide Trekking and the President and Founder of the Human Outreach Project. Dean has climbed and led guided expeditions in North and Central America, Africa, Europe, South America and the Himalayas. In 2013, after over a decade of service as the President of Wasatch Backcountry Rescue and the U.S. representative to IKAR (the International Commission for Alpine Rescue,) Dean retired to focus on his adventure travel company, World Wide Trekking. Dean currently works as an avalanche instructor with the American Avalanche Association and avalanche forecaster for Snowbird Ski Resort. Dean is currently working on a seven summits bid, summiting Mt Everest in 2005. Dean has taught people of all ages and professions, and is well known for his professional ethics and conduct evident in all of his pursuits. Dean has a longstanding record of leadership, program development, and community service.
ARTHUR ULENE, MD
October 30,20L2 Dean Cardinale World Wide Trekking 3568 Little Cottonwood Lane Sandy, UT 84092
Dear Dean,
I'm writing to express our heartfelt appreciation for our latest travel adventure together. Once again, your thoughtful preparations and your meticulous attention to details delivered an extraordinary experience that was once unimaginable by us. For nearly ten years, I dreamed about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, but could not find a tour operator willing to accommodate my age-related concerns. Your flexible approach to route design and pacing and your focus on safety enabled Priscilla and me to celebrate my 75th birthday at the summit.
Our most recent trek on the Ishinca glacier reinforced everything we have come to believe about your company. Twice, after assessing mountain conditions and our condition, you modified previous plans. Those thoughtful changes led to our spectacular success and a joyous celebration at L7,400 feet on the Ishinca glacier. From our first conversation with you about Kilimanjaro, to our recent experience in Peru, the difference between World Wide Trekking and other tour operators has been strikingly obvious: our guides were more experienced than the others; we were better fed than other guests; we were the only trekkers with a private toilet; and we were the only ones sent off each morning with songs and prayer and welcomed back each afternoon with dancing and celebration. For Priscilla and me, these were not simply treks-they were spiritua I experiences.
In the past, we allowed our age and the rigidity of adventure tour operators to limit our range of travel options. Thanks to you, those days are over. We look forward to our next adventure together. (continued)
6b11 Moore Drive, Los Angeles CA
90048
artulene@gmail.com
PH 323.930.9001 CELL: 310.490.1601
Dean Cardinale
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You are welcome to share this letter and our personal contact information with anyone if you think it would be helpful.
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Sincerely,
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10/21/12
To Whom It May Concern: I am writing to share my feedback regarding Dean Cardinale as a guide and resource for numerous outdoor adventures I have shared with Dean. I first met Dean in 2005 where he was a survival, safety and mountaineering resource for a Young President’s Organization (YPO) event I was attending. YPO is an International Organization of 20,000 CEOs of companies with average revenues exceeding $50M. The expectations of a YPO member are very high and Dean never fails to meet and exceed those expectations. The first event I experienced with Dean was a multi-day mountaineering event which included, climbing, hiking, repelling and outdoor safety and survival. His attention to detail, ability to connect with the participants and delivery of an overall high-quality event received extremely high marks from our YPO members. For many years after that and through present, I have continued to engage Dean personally as my personal guide on numerous mountain climbing expeditions around the world. Most recently, I signed up for a Himalayan expedition to the summit of Cho Oyu, a 27,000 foot peak. The expedition provided a guide as part of the fee; regardless however, I decided to bring Dean as my personal guide. That turned out to be a wise decision. The expedition provided an expedition leader who had never led an expedition. Three weeks into our expedition, this expedition leader was found in the dining tent trying to pull his own aching tooth with a pair of rusty pliers and tequila as a disinfectant and pain killer. After Dean explained the numerous risks associated with this act at 18,500 feet, the expedition leader agreed to not proceed with this procedure. Dean has always been my “go to” person for outdoor adventure and safety, in fact we are now planning our next group YPO group event, utilizing Dean as our resource. I feel confident that Dean is the best there is to deliver a safe, successful summit or outdoor experience. Sincerely, Pursant, LLC
Mark Herbick President
November 1, 2012
RE: Letter of Reference for Dean Cardinale To whom it may concern, I could not be more pleased to be able to write the strongest possible letter of recommendation for Dean Cardinale. I have known Dean for well over a decade, initially working with him in the capacity of a senior advisor as he crafted his international non-profit efforts earlier in his career. This then evolved into serving as chairman of the board of his nonprofit organization, the Human Outreach Project. In addition to my knowledge of Dean in this regard, I worked closely with him to develop the curriculum and educational framework for the student leadership project in 2010, now entering its third year. Finally, I have first-hand experience of observing Dean in a range of situations that would be relevant for any program involving student safety and personal growth that I will expand upon below. I am physician and public health scientist at Harvard University, with degrees in education, decision science, risk analysis, and international health policy. Most relevant to this recommendation for Dean, I am director of the Harvard Institute for Global Health, a university-wide institute under the President of Harvard University. In my capacity at the Harvard Global Health Institute, I am responsible for all undergraduate experiential global health learning opportunities, and we are the main site for university pilot programs for new student internships. We run internships in 18 countries, conduct pre-departure cultural competency and safety sessions, seminars and workshops, and monitor student progress and adaptation throughout their time away. Thus, I am well aware of a university’s necessity to place an equal emphasis on education and safety. I have had experience with student illness in unsafe parts of the world, serious student injury and necessity for evacuation, mental health crises in students out of the country for the first time, unforeseen civil unrest, and finally global events such as the Ebola virus outbreak in Uganda this past July‌..all of which required level-headed leadership on the ground, wellplanned strategies for risk mitigation, crisis management, and student evacuation. The importance of knowing the capacity and training of who is in charge in the field, I am so well aware, just cannot be understated. With this awareness and personal experience in mind, I provide the highest recommendation for Dean. While Dean does not conduct trips in areas of civil unrest, his incorporation of adventure, exploration, trekking and climbing, and personal challenge for the individuals on his trips, all bring a certain level of risk. This is simply unavoidable. There is no single person that I trust more in situations like this than Dean. I am speaking both from the knowledge of knowing what can go wrong, and importantly, from personal observation of how he handles risk, injury, and unforeseen events on the ground. In this letter, I will also comment on personal qualities and attributes that contribute to my endorsement later in this letter, but I wanted to begin with a testimonial of his respect for risk, and his capability to ensure the safety and well-being of each individual. You are likely well aware of his credentials from the materials in his application so I will not expand on those easily obtainable facts (e.g., leadership roles in backcountry rescue, mountaineering and wilderness safety, avalanche control and rescue, and has led expeditions all over the world). Rather, I will try and provide insight into attributes and capabilities that do not show up on paper. Dean decided
very early on that he wanted to do two things in addition to achieving his own climbing pursuits and helping others to accomplish theirs – (1) to include humanitarian efforts as an integral component of his expeditions and to “give back” to communities he spent time with; and (2) to foster leadership and decision-making skills in young people, from adolescents to young adults. Prior to the fruition of HOP (Human Outreach Project) his non-profit charitable organization, there were some who might have thought these were words of aspiration – and unlikely to be achievable. But they did not know Dean as I did. When Dean spoke of “giving back to communities”, he spoke with the empathy of someone who cared deeply, the painful recognition of reality on the ground, and with vision and determination to act. When he asked that I serve as his chairman, and sought my advice about the proper way to design a program in locations of poverty, he accepted and embraced frank feedback and a willingness to do things differently, even if it meant accomplishing the goals would be harder. Because of the efforts described above, the partnerships he has established with communities surrounding expedition sites, place the local people in the position of advising him what is needed, advising him about the most culturally appropriate way to interact, and advising him on how to make any program sustainable. For example, very early in the efforts to build an orphanage in Tanzania, Dean established a partner board for HOP in the country such that the project would not evolve into yet another “American volunteer program imposed on a poor country”, but rather a durable partnership that could grow and evolve in the context of the ownership of the Tanzanians themselves, and with the long-term commitment of the partners on both sides. The insistence on conducting work this way, is exactly what we would want students to learn and to experience. As much as an international component of student education has become so critical to their growth in a global society, the highest value to students in such experiences will be the attainment of cultural competency, a sense of global ethics, a respect for the “proper” way to cross-boundaries, and the capacity to see all human beings as citizens of the same world. When students are exposed to how Dean forms relationships and partnerships with the local communities, they will have those experiences. Dean’s desire to foster leadership and decision-making skills in young people has been visible throughout his career in many capacities. I will comment on the most relevant to this recommendation, which is the Student Leadership Program that Dean developed a few years ago. I worked very closely with Dean to design and conduct the inaugural leadership program, a collaborative effort to combine trekking, climbing, education, and global citizenship, and then also accompanied him and the first team on the climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro and the subsequent service project which involved building a foundational infrastructure for the Kilimanjaro Children’s Orphanage in partnership with the local community. In the second half of the trip, the students participated in an intensive service project that involved them working alongside local African skilled laborers constructing housing, agriculture sites, stables and corals, and learning spaces. Prior to beginning work each morning, Dean and I conducted interactive and informal sessions to discuss topics such as health, environmental, social and economic challenges facing the people in rural Tanzania. One of the most unique parts of this experience was the integration of the experiences in the weeks before - reflecting on individual and collective accomplishment, responsibility, and leadership - with the service component. Perhaps the most significant testimony I can provide is what ultimately happened to the students who completed that first program – three of the first six students came to work a second and third year in global health, all three participated in leading case-based learning and leadership programs, and one altered his career direction and is in now in graduate school getting a masters degree in global and international relations, one is working for me at the Harvard Global Health Institute designing student summer internships, and one – a theoretical physicist – elected to pursue a position in global consulting where he provides
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technical expertise to other countries. I believe the experiences they had on the leadership project contributed to these choices. What greater recommendation can I give than that? I will close with simply saying that Dean has personal attributes of professional integrity and honesty that are unparalleled, and a meticulous work ethic. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can provide further information.
Sincerely, Sue J. Goldie Roger Irving Lee Professor of Public Health Harvard School of Public Health Faculty Director, Harvard Global Health Institute Harvard University Director, Center for Health Decision Science Harvard School of Public Health Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine Harvard Medical School 617-495-8222(phone) sue_goldie@harvard.edu
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7/31/13
About Utah: From the slopes of Snowbird to the top of Everest: Life is a world wide trek | Deseret News
About Utah: From the slopes of Snowbird to the top of Everest: Life is a world wide trek By Lee Benson , Deseret News Published: Sunday, July 28 2013 11:55 p.m. MDT
SANDY — Dean Cardinale didn’t invent the philosophy of Do What You Love and You’ll Love What You Do – but he may have perfected it.
Dean Cardinale at the Sandy-based world headquarters of World Wide Trekking, the adventure guiding business he hatched six years ago out of his dorm room at Snowbird. (Lee Benson)
Want to see a satisfied laborer? Want to see a contented capitalist? Want to see a man happy when he’s going TO work? Dean’s got all those bases covered. Sometimes during a typical workday he’ll stop and inhale deeply just to affirm he isn’t daydreaming – and also because he needs the oxygen.
Part of it is the location of his office – Everest one week, Kilimanjaro the next, the ruins of Machu Picchu the next, a sailboat off the coast of the British Virgin Islands after that.
Dean is owner/operator/founder of World Wide Trekking, a business he hatched out of his employee dorm room at Snowbird Ski Resort six years ago. The company motto – “Our planet … we guide it, you trek it” – pretty much says it all. Dean and his small band of guides – there are four of them, counting him – roam the Earth showing people where the cool stuff is, and where to step once they get there.
The concept is simple enough, but it took 15 years for it to evolve, dating back to Dean’s arrival in Utah in 1992.
He was 22 years old and got a job as a fry cook at Snowbird’s Forklift Restaurant, much to the chagrin of the professors at New Hampshire’s Keene State College who’d given him a diploma in mechanical design the year before. Dean had full intention of putting that degree to good use,
World Wide Trekking clients on their way to Everest Base Camp. (Courtesy World
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About Utah: From the slopes of Snowbird to the top of Everest: Life is a world wide trek | Deseret News
but four months of a desk job at a New Hampshire engineering firm proved to be his limit.
Wide Trekking)
In his new career – skiing, roughly speaking – he soon made it onto the Snowbird ski patrol and eventually became the resort’s avalanche forecaster. He moved into the employee dorm and developed a routine. All winter he’d patrol and forecast and save his money. In the spring, when the ski season ended, he’d spend his savings on an adventure.
He did all sorts of stuff. Ran rivers. Climbed mountains. Sailed oceans. Skied the Southern Hemisphere. He bicycled the coast of California three times. One year he summited Denali. Another year he climbed the North Face of Mont Blanc. In 2005 he reached the top of Everest.
Dean and Alison Cardinale in the Swiss Alps. The couple met three years ago on a trek Dean was guiding on Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro . (Courtesy World Wide Trekking)
Then, in 2007, as the ski season was about to expire, he had a brainstorm. Why not take others to the places he’d been? Why not turn it into a business? Why not call it World Wide Trekking?
His first commercial trip was to Everest Base Camp in the summer of 2007. He broke even that year. Ditto in 2008. But word was spreading. The world – or at least that part of the world that likes to really get away from it all – started beating a path to his website (www.wwtrek.com). People loved Dean’s trips. One of them loved Dean. On a trip to climb Kilimanjaro in 2010, a client named Alison, an airline pilot, married him.
Alison moved to Utah and Dean moved out of the dorm. They moved into a house in the Salt Lake Valley, not far from the offices World Wide Trekking now leases near the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon at 7938 S. 3500 E.
Dean isn’t at headquarters much, though. He breezed in last week after guiding a 30day trip through Russia (climbed Mt. Elbrus) and Turkey. He’ll be back on the trail again in a week or so, to Bolivia, then Peru and then Everest base camp.
Dean and Alison Cardinale in Peru at Machu Picchu. The couple met three years ago on a trek Dean was guilding on Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro. (Courtesy World Wide Trekking)
As he outlines his itinerary, Dean can’t help but break into a grin.
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About Utah: From the slopes of Snowbird to the top of Everest: Life is a world wide trek | Deseret News
“Yeah,” he agrees of the job he’s carved, “it’s perfect – couldn’t be better. When I started this I decided I only wanted to do it if it felt like my passion. It would be something I’d do if you didn’t pay me.”
Often, he’s the one doing the paying, or, more accurately, the paying back. An outgrowth to World Wide Trekking is the Human Outreach Project, a nonprofit Dean started, and his clients have embraced, that donates goods and services to those areas they trek to that are rich in natural resources but too often lacking economically.
The Human Outreach Project, with Dean as president and Alison as vice president, owns and/or funds orphanages in Tanzania and Peru and supports a dental clinic in Nepal, Dean Cardinale on a Kilimanjaro climb. (Courtesy World Wide Trekking) in addition to regularly contributing food and clothing and other gear to dozens of other locations. Every year, Dean guides doctors from Salt Lake’s Moran Eye Center to the Himalayas where part of the trip is devoted to cataract surgery.
The reward from such experiences, he says, is huge – very much like the reward from climbing a mountain, running a river or sailing an ocean.
You never do it and wish you hadn’t.
The perfect formula for the perfect job.
Lee Benson's About Utah column runs Mondays. EMAIL: benson@deseretnews.com
Copyright 2013, Deseret News Publishing Company World Wide Trekking clients pose at Machu Picchu in Peru with Dean and Alison Cardinale. (Courtesy World Wide Trekking)
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WORLD WIDE TREKKING
OUR PLANET...WE GUIDE IT, YOU TREK IT.
World Wide Trekking Recent Awards In 2013 World Wide Trekking was selected as “Best of Salt Lake City� in Adventure Travel. Each year, the Salt Lake City Award Program identifies local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community. Recognition is then given to those companies that have shown the ability to use their best practices and implemented programs to generate competitive advantages and long term value.
World Wide Trekking was recently selected as the recipient of the 2013 Utah Excellence Award amongst all its peers and competitors by the US Trade & Commerce Institute. This award illustrates that WWTrek consistently demonstrates a high regard for upholding business ethics and company values. This recognition by the USTCI marks a significant achievement as an emerging leader in the field of Adventure Travel.
www.wwtrek.com | 801.943.0264 | info@wwtrek.com