Tiger Team was created in 1989. At the time, I was 42, the father of two wonderful children and I had recently started a new business. As a father, I was very focused on family matters and, as an entrepreneur working long hours, there was little time for the excitement and adventure that had been such an important part of my earlier life.

Leaving home at the age of 15, my parents decided I should go to military school after having “issues” in public school. I did not adjust well to the structured life of a military academy and spent lots of time marching off demerits. Getting into trouble was exciting, but not adventure. After graduating, the University of Colorado in Boulder hosted me for a semester. That experience was the opposite of a military academy, and I quickly learned to love life (and not school - 0.856 GPA). With no interest in school and a desire for adventure, I joined the Merchant Marine and worked on an oil tanker traveling between Alaska and various ports on the West Coast of Canada and the US – adventure not excitement.

In 1966, as the war in Vietnam was escalating, I joined the Army and spent 4 years in the Army’s Special Forces with tours in the 8th Special Forces Group in Panama and the 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam. Excitement and adventure were daily occurrences!

After leaving the Army, I was able to start my education in earnest thanks to the GI Bill. After working long and hard and earning various degrees, my career in business began in 1975. The next many years were devoted to family and work.

After injuring a shoulder bodysurfing in the summer of 1988, and unable to get my normal dose of exercise, I needed a goal to work towards getting back in shape. That goal would be to climb Mt. Rainier. Friends and acquaintances expressed interest in coming along, so I decided to make it an organized event. Based on the responses from the invitation, it was clear that there were others who also missed adventure and excitement in their lives!

The Mt. Rainier climb was challenging, and at our celebratory dinner, I handed everyone a sweatshirt that read “Tiger Team.” Tiger Team was a term we used in the military – “Send out a tiger team to check it out.” After the Mt. Rainier trip everyone wanted to know – “What’s next? ” And so, the Tiger Team tradition was established – an exciting and adventurous trip, once every year.

There is a great feeling of accomplishment, satisfaction and camaraderie after completing an adventure where your life is endangered and you are dependent on your teammates for survival. There is a bonding that occurs between those who share that experience, and it seems that the more dangerous the mission, the stronger the bond.The Tiger Team stories heard most are the ones about the most dangerous trips.

Tiger Team has taken us places to do things that we would not have done on our own, and we have shared those experiences with our Tiger Team brothers. For me, the most important aspect of Tiger Team is the friendships that I have made. My thanks to each and every one of you for sharing my love of excitement and adventure, for being a member of Tiger Team, but most of all, for being my friend!

- Tom Turney