Anna McCormack
Explorer, professional endurance athlete and gear expert who has lived and worked in 12 countries and led youth and scientific expeditions worldwide.
Anna is well known in the outdoor world as an explorer, professional endurance athlete and gear expert. She has first ascents in the greater ranges to her name and has led youth and scientific expeditions to the Tien Shan as Chief Mountaineer with BSES Expeditions and to Namibia as Country Director for Raleigh International.
- Masters in Forestry and Land Management from Oxford University
- Has lived and worked in 12 countries and travelled through over 40
- Led a paraplegic crossing of the Greenland Icecap in 2006
- Awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Medal for expedition leadership
Early adventures
Before university came scientific research in Kashmir and climbing Masuru Kangri in Ladakh at 17, a solo jungle trek across NW Sumatra at 18 with over-landing across Java and the Nusa Tenggara and a bivvy on the crater lake of Mt Rinjani, Lombok (3,726m), and, on her 19th birthday, a jungle climb to the summit of Gunung Kerinci in Sumatra (3805m), Indonesia's highest volcano.
Later highlights include 'accompaniment' work in Central America during the El Salvadorian civil war, climbing and ski trips through the Pacific North West, Colorado and Western Canada, 3 months researching non-timber forest product use in remote West African villages, biking across the Nepali and Tibetan Himalayas and circumnavigating Mount Kailash in the far west of Tibet.
Academic and professional life
Anna's career spans academia, international development and the outdoor industry.
- Qualifications: a Masters in Forestry and Land Management from Oxford University, a BSc in Environmental Science of the Tropics from the University of Aberdeen and a PGCE in Science and Geography from Leeds University
- International experience: has lived and worked in 12 countries and travelled through over 40
- Development work: roles with DFID, the World Bank and an international movement alongside the FMLN guerilla army in El Salvador during the peace accords
- Leadership: Country Director of a development charity in Namibia and regional manager of an international rafting company in Nepal
- Expeditions and instruction: two years in the Royal Geographical Society's Expedition Advisory Centre in London, and instructing at Plas-y-Brenin, the UK's National Mountain Centre
- Industry: 2.5 years with General Electric as European Product Manager for eVent Fabrics
Greenland and the move north
Anna then raced professionally for five years, working closely with over 40 outdoor companies and becoming an expert in sponsorship and gear. In 2006 she capped two years of research into enabling outdoor equipment for disabled athletes with a successful paraplegic crossing of the Greenland Icecap, for which she was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Medal for expedition leadership. She now concentrates on the family business in Hetta and on growing the family.