Following business our 3rd October speaker was club member Alan Wood, who related a remarkable story of chance happenings. It was about GSD - which we learned means Global Support & Development: a not for profit, fast-track disaster support group. It was founded in 2015 and funded by Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google along with Larry Page and who has an estimated net worth of $87.2 billion. It is a group that operates through a number of specialist partner organisations.

The story unfolded from the viewpoint of Allan’s son-in-law Michael Court, who is now the CEO of GSD. 

Michael is a medical doctor who was also a British Army officer. It was here that he met his now wife Catriona; also a doctor and Army officer. His active service led to an interest in the treatment of battlefield trauma, which in turn led to the study of disaster medicine at Harvard. Still as an Army officer he was variously co-opted to work with and lead teams supporting disasters as varied as Cyclone Pam in Vanuata, Hurricane Mathew in Bahamas, Northern Ecuador earthquake, Californian's fires, cyclone Yutu in Saipan and Covid.

Increasing expertise in disaster support resulted in more involvement in the field and finally to a request to become Medical Director of GSD and a career move from the Army. And then to take over as CEO of this group of some 52 specialists - mostly ex-service people - and a $76M  annual operating budget. More about this group can be found at https://gsd.ngo

Following many questions, Derek Mathie proposed a vote of thanks for a remarkable and unique talk.