Luke O’Neill is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Wilderness Medical Associates International.
A graduate of Georgetown Law School, he specialized in criminal law, and practiced as both a public defender and advocate for juvenile justice, and as a corporate lawyer. At the Harvard Business School, he was awarded HBS’ Fellowship for outstanding performance in non-profit sector and the Dean's Service Award upon graduation.
He has led an extraordinary career specializing in nonprofit management, serving corporate, government, and non-profit groups seeking to accelerate leadership development and team building.
He has specialized in education, creating schools for disadvantaged youth, raising millions of dollars for non-profit ventures. A committed and passionate educator and leader he was recruited by The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation to be their Executive Director for their AMERICAN EXPLORERS, LLC, leading the effort to create a world-class youth leadership development program focusing primarily on young men and women growing up in disadvantaged communities.
For a decade he was the Chief Executive Officer, Founder & Board Member of Shackleton Schools creating and leading a residential high school to inspire young people who experienced little success in traditional academic settings. He secured a 60-acre facility, constructed state of the art facilities. His desired metric and goal was made when every graduate proceeded onto respected colleges including Amherst, Brown, Bucknell, Haverford, Mount Holyoke, and Northeastern most earning full or near-full four-year scholarships.
Luke is a person of tremendous, integrity and character. Ultimately revealing, when he won the prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship Award, he donated his entire personal grant of $80,000 to support the launch of Shackleton Schools, Inc.
Luke is veteran Outward Bound Professional. Most recently he revitalized the business plan and management of the Outward Bound Hurricane Island School.
He is also superbly skilled and seasoned as a hands-on Course Director, Facilitator, and Wilderness Instructor with expertise as a wilderness first responder, open water scuba instructor (PADI), licensed Maine guide, ocean sailing, sea kayaking and CPR Instructor - FCC Marine Radio Operator . Luke’s extensive program areas include the Maine Coast, the Mahoosuc Mountains, San Juan Islands, Northern Cascades, Florida Keys, Croatia, and Panama's Bocas Del Toro region.
Luke leads high-impact educational programs for a wide- range of groups including corporate and community leaders, military veterans, aspiring wilderness educators, incoming MBA students, adults, and teenagers – and University programs.
It is this capacity that I first interacted with Luke and then had the chance over the years to observe and greatly appreciate his unique inspirational amalgam of physical prowess and thoughtful, calm and decisive leadership when he directed many of our EPIIC program’s Outward Bound intensive weekends. These weekends were pivotal moments in my ability to create the intellectual student team that would be able to fulfill the intensive requirements of the EPIIC colloquium and symposium, a demanding program that previous Tufts President and current Harvard President, Larry Bacow admiringly termed an “intellectual boot camp.”
My 2015-16 Outward Bound weekend with Luke is pictured here.
Luke was a superb facilitator of the debriefs of the physical and psychological activities we ran under his supervision. He was intellectually curious, and engaged with the academic content of the weekend’s invited guest professorial and practitioner’s talks and simulations.
We established a great rapport over the years. What particularly fascinated me was Luke’s role as the leader of Outward Bound’s Center for Peacebuilding, serving as the leader of the 2012 and 2015 Emerging Leaders Programs involving carefully selected Israeli and Palestinian participants during a 10-day back- packing expedition in Croatia.
The Institute was considered an “Intellectual Outward Bound,” by HIOBOS. In 2015 he was asked to write this lead article for OB’s International Journal. He also inspired Jerome, whose love for the wilderness and the lure of OB, was honed by Luke’s professional example.
Luke has served The Trebuchet wonderfully as a critical and supportive adviser, as we transition to concentrate more effectively on integrating our Convisero community. Luke epitomizes a wingman – a person you would want as your protective “six.”