At the end of 2011, Alan Lock and Andrew Jensen, both MBA 11, trekked 570 miles over 28 days from the Antarctic Shoreline to the South Pole. For Lock, the Polar Vision trek—now captured in a new YouTube documentary—was the culmination of a journey that began when he suddenly lost most of his eyesight to macular degeneration at the age of 23 while serving aboard a British submarine.
Forced to leave the Royal Navy, Lock continued to follow his passions, exploring the ends of the world while testing his own physical limits. These passions led him through blistering heat over a seven-day, 151-mile run through the Sahara Desert, across the pavement-pounding punishment of over ten marathons, and finally, through rough and stormy seas, where Lock set a world record as the first visually impaired person to row across the Atlantic Ocean.
After the row, Lock attended Haas, where he worked with a practicum at the Boalt School of Law to form a 501c3 called Polar Vision. With the support of his family, friends, classmates, and professors, Lock partnered with classmate Andrew Jensen and Richard Smith, a friend who earned his MBA at Tuck, and spent two years planning, training, and fundraising before setting a second world record by reaching the South Pole upon the 100th anniversary of its discovery by mankind.
By completing this expedition in unforgiving winds and temperatures that often fell below -40 degrees Fahrenheit, Lock became the 312th person in the last 100 years to ski from the Antarctic coastline to the Pole. By comparison, there were more than 500 summits of Mt. Everest in 2010 alone.
The Polar Vision documentary, shot mainly on hand-held cameras by expedition members, shows how Lock, a person with little previous cold weather experience and no skiing ability at all, overcame his own limits to achieve this lifelong goal. It also illustrates how the problem-solving skills the team acquired in their MBA programs, military service, and management consulting roles allowed them to quickly form a team in a high-risk environment.
Released only on YouTube at PolarVisionChannel, the Polar Vision page will continue to add bonus content about the trek during the month of April.