This includes giving television, magazine, and newspaper interviews, creating interest and awareness on social media, updating our subscribers with newsletters every two weeks, creating scholarly papers about the state of African and Asian elephants, creating quality content on our website, engaging one-on-one conversations with individuals and groups and holding fundraisers.
This means stopping the poaching and hunting of elephants and freeing elephants used for research, zoos, rides, petting, or entertainment. We want to ensure that elephants can roam thousands of acres with their families where they can forage for food in climates above 50ºF / 10ºC.
It has been said the divine gifts are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. Anyone who has spent time with elephants knows they possess more of these qualities than humans. And they are incomparably closer to their families than us.
This is why I was so terribly troubled when I discovered that 30,000 to 50,000 of them were being literally butchered alive in the most heinous fashion for their tusks each year
In one well-documented case, several families of elephants sought safety in a herd which grew to over 300. But they were ambushed by poachers on horseback wielding machine guns and hand grenades. All of them - even the little babies - were unmercifully slaughtered. After learning of this, I was unable to sleep that night.
The next morning I volunteered at several internationally-known organizations with declared missions to save elephants. Yet, none were accepting volunteers; and equally disconcerting, they were not forthcoming with information. And the information they provided was woefully outdated.
Nevertheless, I continued talking with experts to create a plan to halt this horrific massacre. However, during the course of these conversations I found no clear, viable plan to stop it
Although millions and millions of dollars were being poured over and around the problem year after year, the genocide wasn't slowing down - it was accelerating!
Nothing was changing on the ground in the elephant ranges. The poachers and hunters were having a free-for-all.
I was aghast! I stood back and said to myself, 'Oh, my God! This is worse than I thought.'
I knew to end the killing, we needed a meaningful plan of action and people's help from around the world.
That was when I knew I had to start my own organization.
So, I founded a 501 (c) (3) public charity, ElephantRescue.Net
This is a systemic plan in which we hope to affect life on the ground for elephants in range states, creating a barrier to market demand, traffickers, poachers and their partners in corrupt governments.
Our advisors live across the United States and Sub-Saharan Africa, between which a seven-hour time difference exists. Consequently, it is a scheduling and logistic challenge to meet regularly.
So, rather than having a traditional Board of Advisors, which necessitates meeting from time to time, we simply call upon selected professionals for counsel when needed. These are some of those professionals from whom we seek advice:
Less than 0.05% of public charities receive the Gold Seal of Transparency from GuideStar.
The Global Plan to Save Elephants, Inc. dba, Elephant Rescue.net is a 501 (c) (3) Public Charity
According to our approval letter from the IRS, "Donors can deduct contributions they make to you under IRC Section 170. You're also qualified to receive tax deductible bequests, devices, transfers or gifts under Section 2055, or 2522."
Our Employer Identification Number is 47-4115823.
Phillip was a rifle expert in the military where he ran three miles in a speedy twenty-six minutes every morning while wearing combat boots and fatigues. He says, "Serving in the military is one of the things of which I am most proud. My job, however, was defense of my country and family rather than venturesome foreign expeditions of offense. Ironically, I'm now a dedicated pacifist."
Upon his Honorable Discharge, he attended Oklahoma City University and the University of Kent in Canterbury, England and holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s Degree in the Social Sciences.
Having completed his university studies, he circled the Earth twice on a two-year journey. The highlights of his round-the-world-trip were meeting HRH Princess Diana, spending three days photographing the Taj Mahal, seeing the starry belvedere of the Milky Way from Australia, attending the tennis championships at Wimbledon, visiting Red Square in Russia, backpacking in the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal and enjoying the kaleidoscopic culture of ancient Marrakech, Morocco, his absolute favorite place.
It was, however, his sojourn to "not altogether civilized India", as he calls it, that indirectly inspired his writing career. He uses the word "indirectly" for it was not India itself that was the inspiration but what he acquired while visiting there: a side effect of the local diet. He says, "Although paying homage to the village doctor in a mud floor hut and drinking his prescription ominously labeled, ‘Only take this if you are very sick’, I was, nonetheless, very sick for three months. It was during this period of my otherwise uneventful convalescence that I began writing essays about the human predicament, with appropriate and timely inspiration."
He especially considered the notion of reconciling the dichotomy of the need to labor and to use one’s talent. Deeply inquiring within himself, using his own experience, he was able to determine unique observations regarding the psychological effects of talent. This led to his creation of Psychosymmetry and its supporting arguments in three essays: The New World of Talent, Talent Revealed in Classic Story-Telling Style and Purpose, Evergreen. He also created a didactic methodology to help young people discover and develop their talent, Talemtjournaling. The mission of his company, Talemtjournaling, is helping k - college discover their talent.
Expounding upon this theme, Phillip wrote the original libretto of an operatic musical featuring the unique lyrics and melodies of twenty-six of his songs. With the backdrop of the Black Forest in the year 1800, the plot is drawn taunt with deadly conflict and high emotion, dramatizing the importance of using one's divine gift.
His articles have been published in The Sunday Oregonian, the largest newspaper in the Northwest United States. He has also written three screenplays and several books, eight of which are currently in print:
Phillip has been a guest speaker at Portland State University, the United States Army, Hilton Hotels, two divisions of Armor All, the English Speaking Union, and several other organizations.
While not writing he spends time hiking with Blackjack, his very best friend and flat coated retriever. He says, " Blackjack is the guru of the higher virtues and one of the best things that has ever happened to me. " Phillip also has adopted two wild Mallards who are mates and have vacationed at his home for the last seven summers. And, he has counted, " exactly twenty-three species of wild birds " that have come to his feeders. He also paints and sketches occasionally. Some people believe his graphite portrait of Lord Nelson may be one of the better likenesses of Nelson.
Phillip is Founder and Chairman of Elephant Rescue.net. Its mission statement is: 1. Creating awareness of the elephant's existential threat. 2. Seeking a safe, natural environment for all elephants. He asks, " Can we beseech God 's mercies for our sins while numb to the cries of mercy from those who sin not?"
He is a past member of The Royal Society of St. George and The English Speaking Union. Hand-in-glove with these organizations are his goals to create global understanding through the English language and to preserve English literature and culture; for, as he explains it, "As a bit of a social scientist, I feel a person’s unique language and culture are the irreducible infrastructures of their political, societal and individual freedoms and, beyond personal enrichment, should be used for international friendship."
