In 2022, Gary Windham fulfilled a lifelong goal of hiking the entire 2,200-mile-long Appalachian Trail. In his presentation, Gary will highlight the planning and effort that went into the challenge, along with trail stories, anecdotes, and lessons learned. He'll include photos of people and places along the way and some comments about what it was like to spend six months, usually completely alone in the woods in freezing and scorching conditions, snow, ice and rainstorms, eating out of a camp pot and sleeping on the ground. While he says the hike wasn't always fun, he assures us that this presentation will be!

Gary Windam claims that he is not a spy, but after working for the National Security Agency for 42 years, some people wonder. Gary is a 72-year-old retiree from a 42-year career as an Electrical Engineer in the US Department of Defense. He spent fourteen years building integrated circuits for the NSA. In 1999, he switched gears and was assigned to a technical liaison assignment near Munich, Germany. He was later assigned to the Pentagon in Information Assurance, and then to Ft. Meade to work in Signals Intelligence. He finished his career as a Technical Director leveraging and promoting biometric technology to help 17 government agencies find foreign terrorists. Since retiring in 2016, he spends his time exercising, hiking, biking and motorcycling, but more importantly, trying to keep his wife, Roberta sane as she serves as the Carroll County Administrator.

Register here:  https://www.chevychaseathome.org/content.aspx?page_id=4091&club_id=559717&item_id=2478320