In 1996, he started the International Outdoor Group (IOG) and the International Outdoor Festival that brought outdoor enthusiasts together with some of the world's foremost athletes including Ed Viesturs, the first American to summit all 14 8,000m peaks without supplemental oxygen, Erik Weihenmayer, the only blind person to have climbed the Seven Summits, the tallest peak on every continent, Eric Simonson, whose 1999 expedition found the remains of George Mallory on Mt. Everest and many more.