Embark Staff
Donovan Pacholl, Founder & Managing Director
Donovan Pacholl is the owner and creator of Embark and its adventures. With a resume of adventure that includes travel throughout Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, and Tanzania, to name a few, Pacholl has organized hundreds of adventure trips around the world, most recently a climb up to 20,000 ft of Imja Tse in Nepal.
At one point he lived at 5,000 feet on Mt. Kilimanjaro, and even proposed to his now wife at the top of the Kilombero Falls in southern Tanzania. Donovan helped form the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project.
Donovan is the contact for all of Embark’s adventures in Tanzania and treks in Nepal and Bhutan. He is considered an expert on all things related to Mt. Kilimanjaro. Read “In Character with Donovan Pacholl” from the Portland Tribune, or “Portland Businesses Can Guide You Through Africa” from the Oregonian newspaper.
Ken Stober, Lead Explorer
Ken comes to us after a distinguished career in the high tech world working for Intel in Portland Oregon and Microsoft in Redmond Washington where he held various technical and business position.
Ken has also worked in the non-profit world with organizations such as International Explorers Connection and Adventures without Limits. While at International Explorers Connection he was a board member and Director of Operations running offices in Nepal and Tanzania. Along with Donovan Pacholl, Ken started the Kilimanjaro Porter Assistance Project that helps the porters and communities in which they live. The project includes a clothing lending program, and first aid and English classes for the porters that work on Mt Kilimanjaro. Ken also funded and built a 300 foot suspension bridge to help the community of Syangma, a village in the Everest region.
Ken has traveled extensively around the world and is currently investigating new and exciting places for adventure. “India is one of the most interesting and diverse adventure destinations” says Ken as Embark Adventures looks to add new destinations in 2012.
When he is not traveling, Ken lives in Redmond Washington.
Carrie O’Callaghan, Client Relations
Carrie O’Callaghan has a passion for the deep perspective that traveling provides and is especially fond of spending larger amounts of time living overseas. Her enthusiasm for learning through travel was ignited when she was 16 and was an exchange student to Germany for a year.
Subsequently she spent six months in South Africa, did the mandatory backpack through Europe, took in the gentle culture of the Balinese and spent a few years on the slopes of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Previous to her involvement with Embark, she worked in the field of International Education helping students travel and live overseas. Currently, Carrie lives in Portland, OR with her husband and two young boys.
Paul Gerald, Marketing & Travel Editor
Paul got hooked on hiking when he was 12 and went to a summer camp in the Absoraka Mountains, part of Wyoming’s Yellowstone ecosystem. His hometown of Memphis would never look the same, and as soon as he could, he started traveling, hiking and climbing whenever he had the time and money.
Over the years, he’s wandered off to China, Pakistan, Nepal, Patagonia, and many European destinations. He’s hiked a few hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail and done the Pacific Crest Trail all the away across Oregon and a couple hundred miles in Washington.
He also started writing for money in the 1980s, with a career as a newspaper sports writer. He eventually branched out into freelance travel writing, then became the author of several guidebooks on hiking, backpacking and camping around Portland, Oregon. He founded Bacon and Eggs Press in 2008 to write an all-breakfast guide to Portland.
Heather Griffin, Marketing & Research
Since graduating from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Heather Vine has worked with a wide range of clients as a graphic designer, photographer, and creative director. She currently works on Embark’s creative team while also traveling the world, researching and helping to plan new itineraries to new destinations.
Her skills include but are not limited to welding, snowboarding, speaking Spanish and signing language, thrifting for treasures, maintaining engaging conversation over dinner with Carlos Santana on more than one occasion, and surviving an elephant stampede in the middle of the night in Africa.
When she is not creating art, Heather creates mischief with her husband and daughter Annapurna (meaning “complete nourishment”). In case it is not already clear, she is both attractive and witty, sometimes simultaneously. She also takes cream and sugar with her coffee.
