“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
Albert Einstein
Look forward getting to know a couple of Amazing People who dedicate their lives to noble goals! They are outstanding, optimistic, inspiring, and profoundly human. These people are fantastic examples of how business partners, chance meetings, or friends of friends become allies and supporter. In deep awe and gratitude, we want to dedicate a part on our website to them. They all started the change by “changing the man or woman in the mirror”. We fund some of their ideas and projects and share their values and dreams.
Douglas Tompkins
“I DON‘T WANT TO SEE ANYTHING
NATURAL GET HURT.”
Doug, the business man, founded the North Face company with a partner in 1966 in San Francisco as a small skiing and backpacking shop. In 1968, he and his then wife Susie Tompkins Buell founded the fashion brand Esprit together. Doug, the conservationist, founded the environmental charity organization Foundation for Deep Ecology in 1990 and the Conservation Land Trust, an organization to conserve land in Chile and Argentina, in 1992. With his second wife
Photo: CC-BY-SA-2.0. Sam Beebe
Photo: source Tompkins Foundation
Kristine McDivitt Tompkins
“WE GREW UP IN U.S. NATIONAL PARKS –
CLIMBING, HIKING, YOU NAME IT.”
It’s difficult to describe someone like Kristine Tompkins. A pioneer in the outdoor industry during her time as CEO of Patagonia and one of the preeminent conservationists of the last 30 years, her story is one that most could only dream of. Born on a ranch in Southern California in 1950, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins considered the outdoors a precious gift from an early age.
At the age of 15, she met Yvon Chouinard, who offered her a summer job. After
Prof. Dr. Herrmann F. Sailer
„THE MOST VALUABLE PAYMENT FOR ALL THE WORK IS THE HAPPY AND SATISFIED SMILE ON THE FACE OF AN OPERATED CHILD.”
Professor Hermann F. Sailer is one of the world’s most experienced and respected experts in facial and jaw surgery. In Sailer’s famous private clinic in Zürich, Switzerland you will invariably meet the “who’s who” of the entertainment, beauty and business worlds.
Next to his glamorous appearance Prof. Sailerhas a deeply human and modest side. In 2000 – inspired by his wife Erika Sailer – he founded “Cleft-Children International”
Photo: Sailer clinic
Photo: source AATS 2019
Dr. David Adams
„I BELIEVE MY GREATEST STRENGTH IS THE EXPERT TEAM OF VALVULAR SPECIALISTS I ASSEMBLED…”
Dr. David Adams is a cardiac surgeon having graduated from Duke University in 1983. To date, he has performed approximately 6,000 cardiac surgeries, of which 4,000 involved heart valve procedures. At He is Chairman of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Mount Sinai where hee and his team has created the Mitral Valve Repair Reference enter to handle operations with a complex valve or etiology. With a 99% repair rate for mitral valve disease they
Courtney Ross
„ALL CHILDREN LEARN. YOU JUST HAVE TO
INVEST IN THEM.“
Courtney is an attractive woman with the well-styled blond mane of a New York benefactress. She has great resolve and has graciously used her wealth to bring opportunity and education to the masses, regardless of the challenges she has confronted along the way. Her dear motto: Know Thyself In Order To Serve. In 1991, Courtney and Steven J. Ross founded the Ross School in East Hampton. They recognized that preparing students to meet the challenges of an in-
Photo: Ryan McCune/PatrickMcMullan.com
Photo: Lucie Jansch
Robert Wilson
“AN ARTIST RECREATES HISTORY, NOT LIKE A HISTORIAN, BUT AS A POET.”
Since the late 1960s, Robert Wilson’s productions have decisively shaped the face of theater and opera alike. With his signature use of light, his exploration of the structure of a simple movement, and the classical rigor of his scenic and furniture design, Wilson has continuously articulated the force and originality of his vision
Prof. Dr. med. Werner Audretsch
“MEDICINE IS A BIT LIKE FORMULA 1: YOU HAVE TO MAKE SURE TO START IN THE BEST TEAM”
Instead of retirement: Professor Werner Audretsch, age 70, started a new venture to fight breast cancer. The internationally renowned surgeon and éminence grise founded an interdisciplinary center for breast cancer – Verein zur Förderung der Senologie.
After 40 years in the operating theater, he started a counselling center for patients: “Zebra”. An independent organization
Photo: source office Dr. Audretsch
Photo: Rob Rich
Andrew Sabin
“OF PARTICULAR SIGNIFICANCE IS OUR CONCERN FOR THE EARTH’S NATURAL RESOURCES.”
Andy Sabin, chairman of the successful Sabin Metal Corporation, does more than simply provide financial support to hundreds of organizations. He is actively engaged with community and environmental programs around the world. He spearheaded the building of a community recreation center in East Hampton, NY. As an extension of his lifelong fascination with reptiles and amphibians and his dedication to environmental education, he founded the