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Robert McCracken Peck (FN’83), who was honored "for pioneering research in the history of science and exploration” with the Philadelphia Chapter’s Explorer’s Award in 1988,  has traveled widely on behalf of the Academy of Natural Sciences, where he is a Senior Fellow.  Over the past twenty-five years he has served as the official chronicler and photographer on dozens of  Academy research expeditions, including ones in Nepal (1983), Ecuador (1984, 1992, and 1998), Venezuela (1985 and 1987), South Africa (1993), Botswana, (1993), Namibia (1993), Siberia (1994), Guyana (1997), and Mongolia (five expeditions, 1994-2006). He has carried the Explorers Club Flag on three expeditions to South America and Asia.

Bob’s photographs have been published in books, magazines and journals and newspapers and have been exhibited in museums across the U.S. and abroad. In 1989 a new species of South American frog (one of three new species he discovered during an expedition to Ecuador) was named in his honor.  In 1991 he received the Academy of Natural Sciences' Richard Hopper Day Medal for his work in interpreting natural history to the public. (Other recipients of the medal have included: Jacques Piccard, Louis Leakey, Ruth Patrick, David Attenborough, Lewis Thomas, Gerald Durrell, Stephen Ambrose, and Sylvia Earle.)

In recognition of his deep knowledge of the cultural and natural history of
Mongolia, Mr. Peck was invited by President George W. Bush to represent
the United States at ceremonies marking Mongolia’s 800^th birthday in
Ulaan Baatar in July 2006. Peck has served as a consultant and on-screen narrator for a number of documentary films on exploration created for public television (PBS) and the BBC.                                                                          

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Explorers Club Flag # 185 
1973 Baro-Omo Rivers Expedition
Ethiopia 
Capt. Joel S. Fogel

In 1973 Joel S. Fogel flew nearly two thousand miles south of Addis Ababa into the jungles of Ethiopia along the banks of the Omo River to begin an exploration by raft for the purpose of filming the tribesmen who lived in that region.

He was accompanied by an Ethiopian wildlife expert, Otto Tabebu, and an German anthropologist, Dieter Hanke. The Smithsonian Institute had indicated interest in an ethnographic film recording the tribal life in that area and the Walter Reade Army hospital had taken a pint of my blood for comparison, following my return.

    
    

The Expedition explored a portion of the Omo River Valley for the first time. It was the upper part of the Great Rift Gorge where famed anthropologist, Dr. Louis Leakey, had discovered the one million-year-old "Australopithicus", the earliest remains of human kind, several years before our expedition.
 
During the course of this six-month expedition, Joel contracted malaria, was left with one of the tribes, initiated into the tribe, given a bride and learned to speak the tribal language. He was eventally found, taken back to civilization and sought to have aid sent back to that part of the world for many years until 1986 when his films which were sent to USAID, resulted in the BAND AID Relief Program which brought assistance to the tribes.
 
All films and artifacts  have been donated to the Smithsonian Museum of of African Art.

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Everest Summit
May 2010
Tom Claytor

On May 17, 2010 Philadelphia Chapter Explorer Club member Tom Claytor, FN'90 succesfully reached the summit of Everest. You can read more and see photographs of this expedition on the website link below.
www.claytor.com/everest