All the material in these pages is from public sources or from consenting interviews.

Click the image above for Earle de Blonville’s annotated CV from Academia.edu. 

This classic movie clip pretty much sums up Earl de Blonville.

“Leading this apparently doomed venture is a charismatic young man. But behind his urbane style lies an iron determination: to succeed whatever the odds, or costs, or die in the attempt. He has stipulated that should he be killed, he is to be buried on the shore and the group must continue.” From: “Seventh Journey‘ (written by Earl de Blonville Bloomfield FRGS describing himself.) 

I’m researching the career of “charismatic” Earle de Blonville Bloomfield FRGS (nee Earle Bloomfield) for an article about modern day explorers and the business opportunities that flow from exploring. I became interested in Earl’s story when researching another story about another professional “explorer” Ripley Davenport. That story is available here: ripleydavenport.net

Earle was born Earle Robert Bloomfield in Australia. “My mother gave me away and quite frankly I couldn’t’t have had a better start to life” is how Earle credits his mother’s abandonment of him, to be raised by his grandfather in a home without running water. According to people who knew him growing up, the “home without running water” is a romantic legend of Earl’s sole authorship. 

Sometime after 1996, when he discovered he was descended from French knights, he changed his last name to de Blonville. Then he decided he was Viscount de Blonville of Saxmundham.

Classic quotes from Earl de Blonville Bloomfield FRGS, Viscount of Saxmundham:

On the 9sails Leadership Program: “Embarking on your voyage of Postformal Leadership represents a freedom to develop as a leader at your own pace within an enhanced consciousness of your own emergence.” Earl de Blonville Bloomfield FRGS: 9sails.com (website now defunct).

On ethics in exploring: “What we must learn from this is that anyone who knowingly allows patently false claims to adventure success to remain unchallenged will be judged to have conspired to keep lies secret…In this world we have to rely on trust for so many things. But to have our trust deliberately abused by the reckless braggadocio of self-styled public adventurers is particularly galling, and we are diminished as a result.” Earl Bloomfield, Letter to Victoria Sea Kayak Club 2001.

“Ambassador” Earl de Blonville:

From late 2010 until early 2015, Earl claimed on his website that he was an Ambassador for both Helly Hansen (outdoor clothing) and Wenger (knives and watches): “In 1986, during a 140 knot Arctic winter snowstorm, Helly Hansen literally saved his life, when he survived a week without food or shelter on a sea-swept rock.” 140 knots in ambient air temperature of 40 F is the equivalent of a wind chill factor of -200 degrees F. That HH gear belongs in a museum somewhere! 

According to Helly Hansen’s distributor in Australia, in 2010 Earl pitched his plans for taking executives sailing in Greenland which would include giving the clients HH gear as part of the package costing over $100,000 per person. That program never happened (arcticexplorer.com) though as part of the deal, Earl was given permission to make personal purchases of gear. Earl unilaterally elevated himself to “Ambassador” which was a status HH did not confer and does not condone. Earl also talked HH (Australia) into including his 9sails program of executive leadership training as a “partner” with HH but when advised that the program was just an idea that had never actually operated, the partnership was rescinded. 

Until roughly July of 2015, Wenger had Brand Ambassadors, and Earl is not one of them and never was one of them.

(Earl’s current website http://earldeblonville.com no longer has links to the Ambassador pages)

Earl de Blonville requested that the domain registrar of this domain take this page down. The exchange of emails on the subject is available to read by clicking here.

Anyone with information, context, stories or “enhanced consciousness” of Earl is welcome to contact me, Kent Madin, at rett139@yahoo.com. At this point I am particularly interested in speaking to those who have knowledge of Arcticexplorer.com and Ursus International.  (The material at the two previous sites with the strikethrough text has now been excluded, by de Blonville, from the Wayback Machine. Earl has erased his OWN professional history, a history HE WROTE.)

On his CV, Earl claims to have run two “expeditions” with paying clients to Greenland in 1988 and 1989. I am interested in distinguishing fact from fiction.

Given the vaporous nature of Ursus International, Earl’s “C-Suite” consulting business, I hope to speak with anyone who was a client of Earl and Gary Gosling.  (I have since heard from Gary Gosling who had this to say about Earl “He was more storyteller than business person. His adventures read of a man that had failed many times but would try a different angle.”

9sails.com was a business of Earl’s in which already successful captains of industry would pay thousands of dollars a day for the privilege of sailing a quaint sailboat (see video clip below) along the coast of France. The businessmen won’t be “taught” leadership (since the un-teachability of leadership is a central tenet of Earl’s theories “The first thing I discovered is that leadership cannot be taught. If it is being taught, it may just be management, re-badged at a higher price.”). Instead, the participants will apparently absorb leadership wisdom from being in Earl’s presence, presumably through the French cuisine. Along for the sailing is Earl’s partner, financial, business and otherwise, owner of the Tarnan, Jennifer Gidley. 

After Earl refused the Tarnan seller’s offer to share the cost of a dry dock inspection (the ship had been sitting at dock for several years) the Tarnan was to sail from Gothenburg to a shipyard in Denmark. Not long after encountering open water and strong winds, Tarnan began to take in water and the pumps failed. This video shows Earl and the “Tarnan” in action (rescue courtesy of the Danish Navy). One of the hired crew, a career naval officer on board during the rescue, later characterized Earl as dishonest, suffering from megalomania and not the leader he professes to be. 

The Tarnan is now for sale, having been renamed “La Boheme”. If one reads the page about the La Boheme, it appears that the idea of 9sails and the idea to purchase the Tarnan were solely that of Dr. Jenniger Gidley. This is odd in light of the fact that prior to purchasing Tarnan, Dr. Gidley had no experience with traditional sail vessels and very limited sailing experience at all, yet she went out and splurged on a ship she had never sailed for many thousands of Euros. This also begs the question of the renaming of La Boheme. For someone professing the value of La Boheme based on her historical value, it seems presumptuous to rename a vessel after sailing on it for less than 24 hours. 

Arctic Climate Leadership Challenge (Acticexplorer.net) was an Outward Bound style program proposed to take place in Greenland involving high school age students. Earl’s CV indicates the ACLC operated from 2005-09. Staff from the program say that no students actually were enrolled or went anywhere, certainly not Greenland. “Our scientific program will be delivered under the supervision of Professor Matthew England, Co-Director of the Climate Change Research Centre, Climate & Environmental Dynamics Laboratory, University of New South Wales.”

Yet, Dr. England, when asked what the program actually accomplished responded ” Hi Kent, I wasn’t really involved in this program in any significant way, so I don’t know the answer to this question. Sorry. Matt”

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University):

I am also interested, within the limits of privacy rules at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), to learn more about the exceptional circumstances through which Earl became a doctoral student at RMIT and a recipient of a government funded cash stipend, in spite of having neither a high school diploma, undergraduate degree or an MA degree.

Earl’s acceptance into the RMIT program may have something to do with his self-published book, ‘Seventh Journey’ which describes the 1986 Greenland Expedition. For perspective on that expedition, a far different view is expressed in the book, “Through the Lens of My Eye“, by Michael Boland, the cameraman on the trip.

Earl de Blonville Bloomfield FRGS briefly expanded his research interests to include “Cyberstalking”. He was apparently inspired by the case of Ripley Davenport, a friend and fraudulent explorer/poser whose short, bizarre career was exposed in the article linked above.

“Cyberstalking: New Executive Threat
“In a paper, articles for publication and a key speaking subject, Earl explores an emergent threat to executive careers. Earl’s planned paper and talk are provisionally titled: ‘Cyberstalked – How Predators Can Shred Your Professional Reputation’. As a recent victim of Cyberstalking himself, Earl has discovered first hand the almost limitless potential for damage to professional reputations faced by executives and entrepreneurs who share their personal data online.”- Earl de Blonville Bloomfield FRGS

In fact, Earl never wrote a paper or an article for publication on the subject and there is no evidence he has ever given a talk on cyberstalking. 

Earl de Blonville Bloomfield FRGS may be a victim of Cybermocking. 

Cyber-Mockers   (with no apologies to Earl de Blonville)
First it was movie stars, then athletes, entertainers and now Academics. We should be flattered by their attention, but in reality these people are not psychologically disturbed, narcissistic, psychopathic or anything close to murderous. Cyber-mockers are not, in fact, criminals but are hopelessly afflicted by the humor to be found in the self-important, self-serving pronouncements of self declared experts and serial embellishers. Cyber-mocking is a unique form of social commentary, participation in which is open to all ages, genders, races and levels of experience. It is, however, deeply frowned upon and deplored by those whose public behavior attracts the attention of the Cyber-mocker. 

Fellow Academics, and all my personal contacts and friends, please be warned NOT to respond to any approaches for ‘friendship’ or requests for information made by anyone you have not fully researched and cleared. Psychologists warn that cyber-mockers are to be regarded as a cancer that cannot be stopped, rather like one of those infectious giggles that threaten to erupt when someone at the podium is saying Very, Very Important Things. It is advised that you ignore any approaches from anyone you are not familiar with seeking information on fellow academics, students and staff. Should you communicate with them, you could easily compromise yourself, your friends, family, colleagues, funding bodies, sponsors, your institution and yes, even the very fabric of the Universe, unleashing a torrent of Cyber-mocking for which you will be rightly blamed and probably mocked. They will go through your list of contacts like burglars ransacking your home – looking for anything of ironic or of humorous value, bits of truth and quotation they can twist to their perverse will and use to crack up others in order to mock you with their crazy-making giggling and general annoyingness.

Cyber-mockers are drawn to those who crave attention and lack any empathy: they don’t care how annoying they are or how many embarrassing questions and raised eyebrows they evoke from your colleagues. Deny them the oxygen of unintended irony, transparent embellishment and outright falsehoods and they will hunt elsewhere. Report any such activity to the authorities and police immediately, particularly if the authorities and police have a good sense of humor. Ask me if you are in any doubt, because I am not and never have been. 

Earl de Blonville Bloomfield FRGS’s annotated CV, which was formally part of his academia.edu page in association with his uncompleted doctoral program at RMIT. Prior to the RMIT program, Earl also completed a Ph.D. through the internet based Rushmore University but was never granted a diploma for failure to pay his remaining tuition. RMIT administration is silent on the question of whether or not Earl disclosed his Rushmore Ph.D. program when applying to RMIT. 

Earl de Blonville Bloomfield FRGS’s LinkedIn page (has disappeared). 

Earl’s remarkable endorsements for fellow LinkedIn users can be found here.

Earl de Blonville Bloomfield FRGS’s Speaking Representation. Although his website says SpeakMark is his exclusive representative, he is still listed on the sites below. Only one agency responded to a request for the last date they had booked Earl to speak and when pressed for details, fell silent. SpeakMark’s now removed youtube page touted Earl’s Postformal Leadership includes this remarkable quote “Boomer “Leadership” is merely the self-delusion of unfulfilled lives.” Ironically, Earl de Blonville is, himself, a Boomer.

http://voxpresenters.com/speakers/australia/authors/earl-de-blonville/

http://www.ovations.com.au/speakers/earl-de-blonville.html

http://theentertainers.com.au/earl-de-blonville/

http://www.njmspeakers.com.au/earl-de_blonville-frgs (listing removed as of Nov. 1, 2013)

Just for fun: US 9th Circuit upholds First Amendment Rights of Bloggers.

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