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2017 | Doing Business in Connecticut 33 By Brandon Butler R ichard Wiese, host of the nature program "Born to Explore," lives in Connecticut but has a job that takes him around the world. He's filmed the show on six continents and traveled to such far-flung places as Belize, Mo- rocco, Tanzania, Uganda and Botswana. Explora- tion, you could say, is in his roots. His father was a pioneering airline pilot, Richard Wiese Sr., the first man to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean. e New York Times dubbed him the Lone Pacific Eagle at the time of the flight. Traveling with his father, Richard Wiese had an opportunity to see the world at a young age. He hiked Africa's highest peak, Mt. Kilimanjaro — a 19,000 ascent — at age 11, and has done it more than a dozen times since. Aer attending Brown University, he was president of the Explorer's Club, a New York-based nonprofit organization that promotes the scientific exploration of land, sea, air and space. He then got into television, hosting nature programs on the BBC, ABC and the Discovery Channel. "I always felt I could do it better myself," recalls Wiese. So in 2011, he proposed his own show, "Born to Explore," which is adapted from his book, "Born to Explore: How to Be a Backyard Adventurer." Home grown Wiese and his wife Nicci — who has a business running safaris in her native South Africa — have twin boys and a daughter. When he started the show, Wiese wanted to work with a team that was near his Connecticut home in Weston. "ere's a giant misnomer that all the talent in TV is in Hollywood or New York," Wiese says. "Connecticut has great professionals." Today, Wiese's shooters, producers and editors all work mostly out of Fairfield County; he says he couldn't do the show without co-executive producers Mercedes Velgot and field director Andrew Ames. Wiese and his team travel the world, telling stories of endangered rhinoceros in Africa, spending time with orangutans in Borneo and finding elusive gorillas in Uganda. e show has been nominated for multiple awards and has won two Day- time Emmy Awards. To kick off 2017, Wiese's show moved to public television, which he hopes will bring it to an audience that's even more receptive to its message. "I think of 'Born to Explore' as bridging cultural gaps and encouraging good stewardship of our land," he says. But it's more than just that for Wiese — it's a personal project he has financed himself and puts his heart and soul into. And over the years, Wiese says his perspec- tive on exploration has changed. When he was younger, his focus would be on getting to the top of a mountain he had never hiked before. "Now that I'm older and I'm a father, I've come to realize that the summit is less important than the people and experiences that occur along the way," he explains. "We deal with a lot of salt-of-the-earth people, and those are the experiences that become a lot more rewarding and enriching at the end of the day." ❑ Richard Wiese tures Molly Ringwald, Meat Loaf and Cheri Oteri and was produced almost entirely in Connecticut. "It came out great," says Lamb, who consulted on the screenplay and produc- tion. "ere were tax incentives, which didn't hurt, but I think overall there are a lot of movies being made outside of Hollywood. One of the benefits of Connecticut is it's close to New York, so you get that talent, but you can get the small-town feel not too far away." Connecticut's media industry isn't just made up of ESPN, NBC Sports, and award- winning digital animation shops like Blue Sky Studios, which produced the Ice Age animated movies. ere's also a whole class of smaller media companies sprinkled through- out the state. Broadcast Med is one example. e com- pany specializes in helping hospitals, health care providers and medical-device manu- facturers distribute video content on their websites. Broadcast Med records lectures, demonstrations, surgeries, informational panels and a variety of other content then hosts it on an online platform that's displayed on the customer's website. Ross Joel, a former television news anchor, founded the com- pany in 1994 as a video production company, but found a niche in broadcasting medical content. Located in Farmington, the company has 23 employees. "Connecticut is where I live and where I'm from," Joel says. "It's a great place to raise a family. Being a small business has its chal- lenges, but here in Connecticut we've been able to make it on our own." ❑ WORLD TRAVELER National travel show has its roots in Connecticut PHOTO/COURTESY PROFILE ' You could make the argument that Connecticut is the center of sports media for the entire world. ' — Andrew Miller, AssociAte professor, sAcred HeArt University