Brian Newham

Brian is an experienced British alpine mountaineer and advanced skier with considerable polar experience having spent more than 20 seasons in Antarctica and with nine visits to the Arctic. Aged 54, Brian has a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and has worked for the British Antarctic Survey as Field Assistant (mountaineer) and as Base Commander for Halley Station, Rothera Station and briefly at the NERC research station in Svalbard. For the last six years he worked as Logistics Manager for Galliford Try International, a UK-based construction company who have built a new £50m research station for the British Antarctic Survey at Halley. He has also worked as an expedition leader for Tangent Expeditions – a company that specialises in mountaineering, skiing and man-hauling trips to Greenland – including a successful east-west unsupported ski/kite icecap crossing. He was the polar guide for the Circle 66 Expedition (2008) – an attempt by an international group of breast cancer survivors to cross the Greenland icecap using dog teams. Brian has wide mountaineering and skiing experience around the world, including first ascents in Andes and Greenland. He has also covered many thousands of miles of ocean sailing with voyages to high latitudes in Alaska, Labrador and Greenland where he has combined sailing with mountaineering. He was awarded the Polar Medal in 1992.