Juggling travel and private practice was challenging but Steve Clift learned early how to work hard to play hard. The decision to take 10 to 12 weeks off every year for travel propelled him to explore the world. Since 2012, Steve has volunteered as the TCC Arkansas chapter coordinator, as well as recently becoming a Platinum (250) member. He is also a member of the Explorers Club and Circumnavigators Club.
An MD graduate from the University of Arkansas, Steve did his fellowship in gastroenterology. For his contribution to medical science, Steve was named the University of Arkansas’s distinguished Alumni of 2023.
Steve is a divemaster, an enthusiastic but poor snow skier and an avid reader. He has taken up the piano upon retirement and is an admirer of his wife Marcia’s talent in painting and sculpting. When he is not traveling, Steve is a weekly attendee of The Rotary Club, serves on the Arkansas Symphony board and takes part on the campaign to complete the Museum of Fine Arts.
Steve enjoys time with his grandchildren and two children, Zoie and Dean, who are both fluent in Greek. Their mom, Anna, who many of you know from the TCC, is buried on her beloved Greek island of Ikaria.
Rick Shaver visited his 100th TCC destination, the Cook Islands, in 2010, and in the same year, started the club’s first international chapter in Canada. Rick’s travel passion was ignited at age 10 with visits to Montreal’s World’s Fair — Expo ’67. He was inspired by his globetrotting grandmother, Irene Shaver, a famous Canadian painter whose paintings were displayed in Air Canada offices.
Rick’s favorite trips have included passing through East Berlin’s “Checkpoint Charlie” in 1983 and spending a month in Communist Romania. More recent explorations include Antarctica, the Galápagos Islands and Bhutan — note the stamp photo.
With degrees from McGill and the University of Alberta, the latter as a member of the Canadian university football champion Golden Bears, Rick pursued sales and marketing, later starting his successful firm, The Hive.
An admirer of Winston Churchill, Rick loves his Cuban cigars but balances this habit by having completed marathons in ten different countries.
Rick’s wife Jane is a TCC member, and his three daughters Katie, Jill and Bridget, are avid travelers, too. He is pleased to say that his two grandchildren have already been to their second TCC destination: PEI. It’s in the family.
