1 950
Having visited HEC between 1942 and 1944 (the smallest ever class– made up of just 19 students), Maurice Herzog joined the Resistance shortly after graduating. During the Alps campaign (1944-1945), he was Captain of the 27th battalion of mountain hunters. At the end of the war, the French Climbing Federation made him leader of the Annapurna expedition. In 1950 he embarked on a journey to the unknown: at the time no maps of the region had been made and people were not yet aware of the way the human body reacts to high altitudes. Two months after starting the expedition, he reached the summit of Annapurna: a peak over 8000m high. It was the descent that proved to be the biggest ordeal for Maurice Herzog and his companions. The severe frostbite on their fingers and toes forced the doctors to carry out emergency amputations with makeshift materials. On his return, Maurice Herzog spent a year in hospital to recover. Despite his mutilations, he continued to pursue his career as an industrialist which he had begun in 1945. In 1958 General de Gaulle appointed him as Minister of Youth and Sports. He went on to be Deputy of Rhone (1962 – 1978) and Mayor of Chamonix (1968 – 1977). Representing the values of transcendence, courage, entrepreneurship and even the virtues of failure, the HEC family paid homage to him at their “Matins HEC” meeting in April 1995. (Inspired by an article from the HEC journal “Hommes et Commerce" n° 340, December 2010 - January 2011.)