George Band OBE
George Band, born in Taiwan in 1929, is British and was educated at Eltham College, Cambridge and London Universities where he studied Geology and Petroleum Engineering. During National Service he was an officer in the Royal Corps of Signals. George was President of the Cambridge University Mountaineering Club and had a fine record of climbing in Britain and the Alps from 1948 and 1952.
At the age of 23, he was the youngest member to be chosen for the first successful Everest Expedition in 1953 led by Colonel John Hunt (later Lord Hunt) when Hillary and Tenzing reached the summit on 29th of May just before the Coronation. Two years later with Joe Brown on Charles Evans’ Expedition, he was the first to climb Kangchenjunga 28,169’ (8,586m) the world’s third highest peak, then the highest unclimbed. At the time, Lord Hunt considered that its ascent would be …
“the greatest feat in mountaineering, involving technical problems and objective dangers of an order even higher than those we encountered on Everest.”
Out of respect for the Sikkimese, who consider the mountain sacred, the top was left untrodden. In between these and other expeditions in the 1950s to the Alps, Karakoram, Peru and the Caucasus, he proved a popular lecturer.
In 1957, he began an international career with the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, initially as a Petroleum Engineer concerned with oil and gas development, serving in positions of increasing responsibility over 26 years in seven different countries. Returning to the UK in 1983, he left Shell when appointed Director General from 1984 to 1990 of the UK Offshore Operators’ Association, which represents the oil and gas companies operating on the UK Continental Shelf.
Now after retiring from the oil industry, he is able to return to his earlier loves of travelling, photography and talking about his experiences. He continues to enjoy modest climbing and leading treks in mountain regions for a small travel company Far Frontiers, having recently visited India, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Central Asia. Since the mid-1980s he has been Chairman of the Mount Everest Foundation, President of the Alpine Club, on the Council of the Royal Geographical Society and President of the British Mountaineering Council. He is currently Chairman of the Himalayan Trust UK which continues to support the late Sir Edmund Hillary’s work on behalf of the Sherpas of Nepal. In the 2009 New Years Honours List he was awarded OBE for ‘services to mountaineering and to charity.’
In May 2003, his book Everest: 50 Years on Top of the World, written specifically for the Mount Everest Foundation to mark the Everest Jubilee, was published by Harper Collins and immediately became a best seller! This was followed in October 2006 by Summit: 150 Years of the Alpine Club in celebration of the founding of the world’s oldest mountaineering club in 1857.
George and his wife, Susan, life in Hampshire and they have three grown up children and five grandchildren.
