Wandy Swales

Wandy Swales is the inspiration and spirit behind Trekforce. He is one of the late and great, original Explorers. Like every great Explorer he inspired anyone he came into contact with. Wandy co-led Operation Drake (the precursor to Operation Raleigh). Realising the great work that expeditions can do for the host country as well as the participant, Wandy founded Swale Treks and started leading true adventurous expeditions in the mid 1980s exclusively to Indonesia, where at the time many of the 30,000 islands were uninhabited.

Swaletreks turned into the charity, The International Scientific Support Trust in 1990; this in turn changed its name to Trekforce Expeditions not long after in order to reflect the changing nature of project-based expeditions. The early 1990s was when many of the greats in expeditions, including Bruce Parry, Doug Warner, Ed Swales, Damian Taylor, Corrin Adshead, Lizzy Ellis, and Steve Oliver became involved carrying on the great work of Wandy and his fellow supporters / Trustees.

It was also the time Rob Murray John became involved. The spirit of Wandy lives on in Trekforce Worldwide which was set up by Rob to use this amazing expertise and experience to carry on the legacy of Trekforce Expeditions.

As Bruce Parry so aptly put it: "I was there with Swaletreks in the early days, and to me ISST, Trekforce Expeditions and now Trekforce Worldwide is just another metamorphosis of the same spirit of adventure and environmental concern that Wandy set up all those years ago. So long as the people at the helm remember the ethos of those early days I will be there at least in spirit until the end. I see the indefatigable Rob Murray-John and Ed Swales as exactly those sorts of people. I wish you all good luck for the future and have a hell raising party, Wandy style, to say good-bye to the latest shed of skin."