How the Walleighs Found Purpose & Adventure

Rick & Wendy overlooking Lewa Downs' savannahBoomers Rick and Wendy Walleighs’ book details their inspiring move to Swaziland and then Nairobi, Kenya for a total of 18 months. These are documented on this website and in their book titled From Silicon Valley to Swaziland: How One Couple Found Purpose & Adventure in an Encore Career. It is available on Amazon, all online book retailers, and some Bay Area bookstores. Go to Media Coverage to see all the media featuring the Walleigh’ adventures.

ALL ROYALTIES ARE DONATED TO TECHNOSERVE, the international development organization for which the Walleighs worked, to continue its “Business Solutions to Poverty” in Africa and Latin America, so please buy this book for friends and family!

Meanwhile, enjoy the photos and descriptions of our many travels to nearly 60 countries on six continents.

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Download our entire book for free! Or click on the image above to sign up here to get a free preview of our book, From Silicon Valley to Swaziland: How One Couple Found Purpose and Adventure in an Encore Career.

Yosemite – the Walleighs Favorite Place on Earth

Starting in Summer 1972 when Rick and Wendy took their cross-U.S. trip in their red VW camper between each of their graduate schools, their first visit to Yosemite began their life-long love affair with this amazing place.  On that trip, one of their first guided...

Kenya Successes: Competition Winner Expands Bioplast Company

Each of top 20 Believe Begin Become Business Plan Competition finalists from 2007 received “after-care” in the form of business consulting by TechnoServe staff.  Wendy was able to visit Bioplast Industries one year after the competition.  Paul Ngugi Homba received his...

Uganda Successes: Matooke Banana Farm Co-operatives

In August, 2007, Rick and Wendy learned about the then-main TechnoServe Uganda project underway: organizing farmers of Matooke (ma-TOH-kay) bananas, the country's main staple.  These are starch banana which when removed from the still-green skins are cooked, crushed,...

Uganda: Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to Trek Mountain Gorillas

One of the Walleighs’ three most memorable animal adventures in Uganda was trekking the Mountain Gorillas.  One of the national parks protecting the last 500 to 700 Mountain Gorillas in the world, Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is only one kilometer from the border of the...

Kenya Successes: Subsistence to Substance to Business Success for Small Banana Farmers & Traders

Many of Kenya’s central and eastern rural poor have a few banana trees in their yards. But despite Kenya’s large overall banana crop, farmers are virtually unconnected to urban wholesalers, retailers, and consumers in cities like Nairobi, Kisumu or Mombasa.*  These...

Uganda: Murchison Falls and Queen Elizabeth National Parks

Each of the two national parks Wendy and Rick visited--Murchison Falls northwest of Kampala and Queen Elizabeth near Uganda’s southwestern border—had wonderful animals as seen on the Uganda Animal page.  Plus each had unique geographical elements.  Along the way to...

Swaziland Successes: Livingstone Protective Clothing Company

By the late 1990s Swaziland’s once-thriving textile sector had been reduced to mostly producing zippers and yarn due to the dominance of the Asian textile and clothing industry as well as the influx of high quality second-hand clothing into Africa.  However, as clever...

Kenya Successes: 2007 Believe Begin Become Business Plan Competition

To kick-start youth entrepreneurship in Kenya, TechnoServe partnered with Kenya’s Ministry of Youth Affairs to launch a national business plan competition across Kenya. In March 2007, Kenya’s Vice President and the Minister of Youth Affairs officially launched Believe...

Namibia: Sossusvlei Area of the Red-Duned Namib-Naukluft Desert

The final major stop at the Sossusvlei area of the Namib-Naukluft Desert was as memorable as their time with the Bushmen, but  in a very different way.  The pictures don't do justice to the sand's dramatic colors, changing almost moment to moment from sunrise to...

Kenya Coast’s Watamu and Lamu Island

Whimsical Watamu: Friends Anna and Greg discovered that Kitengela’s Croze family also owned a large rental home on the coast north of Mombasa in a beach town called Watamu.  They invited a group of friends for a weekend at the Croze home in Watamu.  After a brief...
U.S. Snow Country–Winter 2013

U.S. Snow Country–Winter 2013

National Elk Refuge in Jackson, WY. In January 2013, Rick and Wendy flew to Jackson, WY to spend a week with their son Adrian and his girlfriend Kallie.  While there, Wendy and Kallie visited the National Elk Refuge via sleigh.  It is truly amazing how:  large the elk...

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U. S. Cross-Country Road Trip

U. S. Cross-Country Road Trip

Starting May 31, 2008 in Los Altos, Calif. and ending almost 4,000 miles later on June 10, 2008 in Greenville, North Carolina, Wendy and Garner ventured across the southern U.S. to deliver Wendy's 2002 VW Beetle to Diana (so she could drive to/from her new pediatric...

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“If you are nearing the end of your business career and wondering what’s next, you’ll find Rick and Wendy’s experience both illuminating and inspiring.”

Debra Dunn

Consulting Associate Professor & Former Senior Vice President, Stanford University, Hewlett Packard

 “Rick and Wendy Walleigh are my down-to-earth heroes. At the end of Phase 1 of very successful careers–still healthy enough to spend their retirement days skiing, golfing, lunching, traveling in style–they chose instead to take their energy and considerable skills and apply them in some of the poorest communities in the world.

Bruce McNamer

President & CEO of The Community Foundation for the Nation's Capital Region (Washington DC) & former CEO of TechnoServe

“For those seeking an encore to their professional lives, Rick Walleigh’s account of the adventure he and his wife, Wendy, began is as energizing as it is useful. This remarkable book summarizes the factors they considered before volunteering in Africa to foster economic growth through small business development. More importantly, it records their experience with cultural change, new applications for honed skills, the nature of contemporary economic development work in the face of poverty, and the sights, smells, surprises and encounters found in living and working overseas. This is not a “how-to” book for those of us wanting renewal; it is an “I did this and so can you” story that is unique, thought-provoking and encouraging.”

 

Ron Boring

Former Executive Vice President, Vodafone-Japan