[ot-caption title=”Mike Hettwer speaking to Pine Crest students. (via Ben Pierce, freshman)”]

On Friday, February 26th, Michael Hettwer came to the Pine Crest Fort Lauderdale campus to speak to the Upper School students about his career.  As a photojournalist, Mike Hettwer travels the globe capturing archeological wonders, dinosaur discoveries, and intriguing geocultural stories. Hettwer’s adventures have taken him to many different counties in the African and Asia continents. Alongside famous dinosaur hunter Paul Sereno, Hettwer has been a part of ten dinosaur missions to the Sahara Desert and Gobi Desert. He has also been on a Lake Turkana archeology expedition with paleoanthropologists Meave and Louise Leakey.

According to Mike Hettwer’s biography, “Mr. Hettwer’s photographs have been showcased in nearly 5,000 magazines, newspapers, books and websites. Some of these media outlets include National Geographic magazine, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun Times, Science, Nature, Discover, Stern, BBC, Scientific American and USA Today.” In the past, Hettwer produced an expedition cinematography book with Meave and Louise Leakey, and he is currently producing several short films.

Before Mr. Hettwer became a world-renowned photographer, he was known as Mr. Mike Hettwer, CEO and serial entrepreneur.  Hettwer told the PC students that he founded six individual companies, all which were geared towards technology and software. His two most recent companies created over 500 different websites and generated about $1.2 billion in revenue for his online clients. Previously, he had a web development firm that he grew from four to 200 people and generated $30 million in revenue annually before selling it.  Then, he was able to follow his passion, which is photography.

Mike is obviously an extremely intelligent individual. To back this claim up, Mike holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology and has attended the TED Conference for 13 years. Adding onto his business accomplishments, Hettwer is the Executive Director of TEDxMidwest, the non-profit locally organized version of the TED conference. This organization is regarded as one of the premier TEDx events in the world as it brings 40 world-class speakers to Chicago annually.

During his speech at Pine Crest, Hettwer told students about his time in Bangladesh, where he investigated the issue of ship breaking.  Bangladesh recycles old ships by breaking them into pieces that can be used to build skyscrapers.  This is done in dangerous conditions, and many workers get injured, as they do not have proper protection.  Hettwer published this story in National Geographic after five years of investigation and photography, and he shared some of his photos with Pine Crest students.

In Hettwer’s final remarks while speaking to Pine Crest, he stated that in order to do something you love, you must first put yourself in a steady business situation. Then, once you have the financial aspect covered, you can branch out into uncharted territory and reach for heights you never thought imaginable.

Sources: tedxmidwest.com and hettwer.com