User:SusaSusanna/sandbox/Torbjørn C. Pedersen

= Torbjørn C. Pedersen = Torbjørn "Thor" C. Pedersen (born December 19th, 1978) is a Danish businessman, adventurer and is most notably the creator of the Once Upon A Saga project: a journey to visit every country in the world without the use of air travel.

He has worked in multiple countries across four different continents in his career as a shipping and logistics manager.

Early life
Torbjørn Cederlöf Pedersen was born in Kerteminde, Denmark, to Torben Pedersen (Danish) and Ylva Cederlöf (Finnish).

The family moved to Toronto, Canada, and later to New Jersey, USA over a period of five years, before returning to Denmark in 1984 where Torbjørn spent his childhood growing up in Kerteminde and Bryrup before entering business school at Silkeborg Handelsskole, Silkeborg.

Pedersen graduated in 1998 and was drafted to the military later the same year, serving as a royal life guard at the royal palaces throughout Denmark.

After finishing national service Pedersen joined SHIRBRIG, a United Nations standby peacekeeping force, and in November 2000 was deployed to the Horn of Africa.

Career
Pedersen began a career within shipping, logistics, and transportation in late 2002.

He worked for Blue Water Shipping from 2002 until 2010, whereafter he founded Red Sand Solutions focusing on providing logistical services to established companies.

Pedersen's career within shipping has provided him with work in a large variety of countries: Denmark, Libya, USA, Greenland, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and Arctic Sweden.

Once upon a saga
In 2013, Pedersen began planning a project which aimed at visiting every country in the world in a single unbroken journey explicitly without the aid of air transport.

The project gradually became more serious as Ann-Christina Salquist, a PR and communications consultant and longtime friend, joined the planning process and helped it become a reality.

Over time another two of Pedersen's friends joined: Søren Vestergaard Christensen (webpage) and Parth Nilawar (creative ideas and graphic design).

Together the quartet created Once Upon A Saga, a project with the objective of reaching every country without flying and promoting the world in a positive way.

Over the same period of time Pedersen applied for a role within the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) of the Red Cross. Throughout the year he attended various trainings and became a logistics delegate of the ERU and towards the end of the 10 months planning period the Danish Red Cross appointed Pedersen a Goodwill Ambassador.

In this role he was tasked with writing an "always present story" for each of the 191 Red Cross Red Crescent national societies across the world, which makes up a large part of the content of his blog page.

On October 10th 2013 at 10:10am (10/10,10:10) Once Upon A Saga began at Dybbøl Mølle in Southern Denmark. Soon after Pedersen crossed into Germany by train and has, at the time of writing, reached 128 countries on four continents (Europe, North America, South America and Africa) without returning home.

He is expected to complete the project and return to Denmark again in 2019.

Media
‘Once Upon A Saga’ has earned Pedersen media coverage in more than 80 countries so far.

In addition to other outlets, Pedersen and his project have notably been featured by: VICE, BBC, ABC, Lonely Planet, National Geographic, Forbes, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, News.com.au and RTÉ.

Red Cross Red Crescent
Pedersen holds the following roles and memberships in various societies within the International Red Cross Red Crescent Movement:


 * Goodwill Ambassador of the Danish Red Cross Society
 * Lifetime member of Bahamas Red Cross Society
 * Lifetime member of Kenya Red Cross Society
 * Honorary member of Seychelles Red Cross Society
 * Humanitarian ambassador of Sudanese Red Crescent Society

Other adventures:

 * 4 month motorcycle journey: India, Nepal, Iran and Turkey[d]


 * 1 month solo motorcycle journey: USA, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.


 * Solo sea kayak journey around Fyn (Danish island). 8 days - 300 km.


 * Hike to the peak of Mt Kilimanjaro.