Alan Arnette

What is your mountain? Running a business, raising your children, learning a language, reaching a quota, breaking through? Each of us has a challenging goal in our lives - and we all meet hurdles that seem insurmountable. Alan's inspirational speaking brings a new approach to motivation. His casual yet powerful style brings audiences into his world of high-altitude mountaineering with incredible pictures, videos and stories yet connects with them on a real-world basis.

Alan Arnette Alan Arnette is a captivating speaker, passionate mountain climber and committed advocate for Alzheimer’s victims and their families.

His high-altitude climbing combined with a career as a senior executive in high technology sets the stage for him to uniquely relate to audiences from global corporations to non-profit organizations to students. Audiences always find ways to identify with their own ‘mountains’ during Alan’s inspirational presentations.

Biography

He took early retirement in 2007 at age 51 from Hewlett-Packard. During his nearly 30 year career, his roles ranged from general management to marketing to R&D and sales.

Alan began climbing at age 38 with a summit of Mont Blanc. From there he went on to climb on some of the world’s highest peaks including Everest, Cho Oyu, Shishapangma, Broad Peak, Denali, Aconcagua, Rainier and more. He has now completed over 20 major expeditions around the world and summited more than 50 of his Colorado 14ers which is a surprise to his friends and family in Memphis where he was born. Alan is a regular contributor to Outside Magazine on mountaineering subjects. Also he shares his experiences on his website www.alanarnette.com during each climb with audio and video dispatches plus extensive trip reports. He also blogs frequently, reviews climbing gear and basically is guilty of TMI.

Alan is an inspirational speaker who blends high altitude mountaineering with his practical business experience through Leadership Lessons from Mt. Everest presentation for corporations and Everest for KiDs for education. Yes, he says he likes sleeping on the ground for 8 weeks at a time!

Alzheimer’s took his mother, Ida, after an 8 year battle in 2009. It also has taken two of his aunts. Today he is an advocate for everyone impacted by this devastating disease through public speaking, his website and fund raising events.

Starting in 2010, he is raising $1M for research through climbing the 7 Summits - the highest peak on each continent. He has partnered with the Alzheimer’s Association, International Mountain Guides and Outside Magazine.

He is married to Cathy, whom he could not do any of this without. They live in Colorado.

Approach

Alan's mixture of his own high-quality climbing photographs and videos along with his casual approach creates a comfortable environment for any audience. His ability to connect to each person with his speaking style and presence helps everyone become part of the event and take away something special for themselves.

He is not the standard speaker with a tightly memorized script. He interacts freely with his audience throughout the event welcoming any and all questions and comments. Audiences leave with a new sense of what it is like to be near the top of the world in the harshest of conditions or to sit across from their parent as they slowly go away or dealing with obstacles. Sponsors are pleased that their messages got through.

Each presentation is customized for the event's goals and audience. Alan has a deep commitment to every engagement and spends whatever time is needed to be effective.

Keynote Presentations:

Leadership Lessons from Mt. Everest

Alan’s high impact multimedia presentation takes audiences through the three phases of accomplishing a challenging goal: preparation, execution and overcoming adversity. His humorous and startling first hand accounts of surviving a fall into a crevasse, extreme illness near the summit of Everest and burying a teammate high on the mountain, helps his audience focus on the question of “Is this hard or is this impossible?”

Everest for KiDs

Alan takes his inspirational and educational Mt. Everest multimedia presentation and helps children of all ages learn about the culture, geography and opportunities of taking on a huge challenge like climbing Mt. Everest. His presentation of Everest for KiDs is used in school curriculums across the world today and now Alan takes it on the road to present to schools. Teachers, parents and administrators all agree that his ability to relate to the children is special.

Memories Are Everything

Alan brings home the realities of Alzheimer's disease with his candid presentation about his mother's struggle. He ties her lost memories into his climbing passion with a sincere discussion asking audiences to consider what if one day they could not remember the most important memories of their lives. This powerful multimedia presentation is sensitive, informative and entertaining with Alan's causal style, sense of humor and ability to reach each person in the audience.

Alan speaks intimately about his mother, Ida:

“My mother has Alzheimer’s. A good moment is when she remembers her husband of 60 years who passed away in 2006, my brother or me. Her favorite memories were of her childhood, now even those are gone. It is devastating to watch her mind slip away but a small blessing in that she does not know that she will probably die a horrible death when her brain ‘forgets’ how to swallow. During a recent visit she asked me “Now, where does your mom live?” It broke my heart.

Comments

"Thank you Alan. We very much enjoyed having you as part of our Symposium. Our managers certainly expanded their horizons by learning about the challenges you have dealt with and overcome." Jean Sammon, Training Coordinator - BLM National Training Center

“This is terrific! I really think you have an incredible gift!” - Glory Burns, Vice President, First Western Trust Bank

“Alan is one of the most genuine, authentic, sincere leaders I had the pleasure to work for. He struck a great balance between decisiveness, inspiration and analytical rigor.” – Morris Wallack, Director, Hewlett-Packard

“Thank you again for your great presentation last night. Your photos were just magnificent and now I can picture future references of the journey to Everest. Thank you so much for your efforts on behalf of the Alzheimer's Fund. With the gruesome statistics of this disease, time is of the essence for all of us.” – Marianne Carter “

“Alan is a very high energy, big picture thinker. He's collaborative and authentic, and motivated to see the teams succeed.” – Paul Beiser, Pelco

"Thank you for taking the time to call my students. They were mesmerized. I think they are all fascinated by what you are doing, and you are inspiring them." Anthony Garcia, Boltz Jr. High School

Engagement Information

Alan lives in Colorado and can be reached at . He is available for individual presentations or multi-day workshops including team building, business consulting or individual coaching. More information about his climbing adventures with extensive pictures, videos and essays can be found on this site. A portion of all proceeds is donated to Alzheimer's research. Contact him today with any questions or ideas. He welcomes all engagements.