About Endurance Challenge Normandie
Our History
Endurance Challenge Normandie was founded in 2023 by a group of dedicated professionals ranging from extreme athletes to historians who are passionate about keeping the significance of D-Day alive.
Our Vision
Our vision is to become an annual destination for athletes looking to meld their passion with purpose and participate in a one-of-a-kind event that honors those who served and those who remember.
Our Mission
Our Mission is to create an athletic event that encompasses all five D-Day landing beaches. One that is great enough to honor our war heroes and veterans. One that is difficult enough to challenge our strength and grit. And one that is significant enough to fill our soul with truth and purpose.
Route Map
We are a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the needs of our local community. From providing food and shelter to those in need to offering educational programs and support services, we are committed to making a positive impact on the lives of those around us. By supporting Endurance Challenge Normandie, you are supporting your community and helping to build a brighter future for all.
Become a Sponsor
As a sponsor of Endurance Challenge Normandie, you will have the opportunity to make a significant impact on the lives of those we serve. Your support will help us to expand our programs and services, reach more people in need, and make a lasting difference in the community. Contact us today to learn more about becoming a sponsor.
OUR TEAM
Katharine Curtis, Co-Founder President
Katharine Curtis, a lifelong athlete and 5x English Channel Relay Swimmer, is the founder of Communication Tactics and Grounded in Strength. An author, public speaker and communication strategist, Kate has been helping individuals and organizations stretch their comfort zones and unlock their potential for over 30 years.
She has always had her eye on the horizon, and if you know her, you’ve probably been asked the question: “What’s Next For You?” Visiting the D-Day Landing Beaches in Normandy for the first time in 2016, Katharine was moved by the incredible beauty of the coastline, and the intense contrast of what happened there on June 6, 1944. Her first swim at Omaha Beach brought her to tears and compelled her to imagine an athletic event that allowed every participant to feel the strong emotions she felt that day.
Channeling her grandfather’s grit and determination, Katharine co-founded the Normandy Endurance Project Foundation. Her vision has become the Endurance Challenge Normandie: a one-of-a-kind multi-sport event that covers the entire stretch of all five D-Day landing beaches. Traversing the legendary coastline, athletes will participate in ocean swims, beach & trail runs, and ceremonial walks led by the Foundation’s Historian, JD Wyneken. It is Katharine’s hope that the event will become an annual destination for athletes around the world and will be tough enough to honor our war heroes, and heartfelt enough to move the souls of all involved.
Matt Simms, Co-Founder Vice President & Treasurer
A career military officer with service spanning more than 31 years, he served on active duty as a Submarine Officer and an Intelligence Officer in the Navy Reserve. He completed submarine deployments into regions in conflict, mobilized for a year to the multinational force in Iraq, and completed a capstone assignment in Region Command. He now serves the community where he lives as an elected Parks Commissioner and is currently leading a project to build a public aquatic center.
A lifetime endurance athlete, he counts Ironman, ultramarathon, cycling, and long-distance pool and open water swim event finishes in his CV. He crossed the English Channel in 2023 as part of a successful swim relay, and was the winner of the Iraq edition of the 2007 Boston Marathon. He has organized international and domestic endurance events and leads open water swim clinics.
Matt’s interest in World War II was sparked by his grandfather’s military service. Graduated early from the U.S. Naval Academy, he arrived in Pearl Harbor two days after the Japanese attack and joined the crew of USS Lexington (CV-2), where he fought valiantly but was tossed with hundreds of his shipmates into shark-infested waters when the ship was sunk at the Battle of Coral Sea. Exposed to and defenseless against strafing and bombing from aircraft and intense gunfire from Japanese ships, many brave souls were lost on that day.
A military assignment at NATO sparked his interest in D-Day. Representing the U.S. military at an event in Bastogne at the anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, he was deeply moved by the gratitude of the generation liberated by those forces who had landed on the Normandy beaches only a few short months earlier. A trip to pay respects at the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer followed, tracing battle lines back to that landing and building his deep respect for the immense sacrifice surrounding June 6th, 1944.
Matt joined Kate’s effort in this project simply by saying ‘yes, we can’, and reflects with gratitude on her leadership and on the dedicated and selfless team of volunteers who have built Endurance Challenge Normandie in the months since. For Matt the event represents a chance to raise awareness of the sacrifices that our soldiers, and those of our allies, made on that day. So their profound service, to our nation and the nations they helped to liberate, will never be forgotten.
Rob Telford, Co-Founder Secretary
Rob Telford is a Program Manager with Lockheed Martin. For the last 25 years he has led and managed defense contracts with the US federal government from Washington, DC to the Silicon Valley in California. Rob served in the United States Air Force where he was selected for an assignment to provide secure communication to the President and his staff at the White House Communications Agency. Since then, Rob has led a multitude of projects building data centers, developing software for the war fighter, and currently leads an effort to modernize the mission computer and software on the THAAD defense missile system.
Although Rob had several family members that fought in the Korean War and Vietnam, he had no ancestors who served in WWII. His interest came later in life as he consumed Tom Brokaw’s ‘The Greatest Generation’, Steven Spielberg’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’, and Ken Burns ‘The War’. Rob’s background with the US military and his career in defense contracting reinforces his belief and understanding of the magnitude and significance the United States played in two wars, on opposite sides of the globe. He views the successful Normandy mission as THE pivotal moment in our world's history when freedom was secured.
Rob was introduced to the Endurance Challenge Normandie vision by Kate Curtis. Knowing Kate’s background with outdoor swimming and fitness events, he immediately connected the significance of holding an ECN event across the five Normandy beaches. In leading and building a successful challenge event, he hopes to promote awareness, education, and fitness for thousands in the years to come. His primary objective is to organize and execute this one-of-a-kind event that honors those who served, while remembering those that sacrificed so that we can enjoy our freedoms.
Michael Goldsmith Committee Chair
Michael Goldsmith has more than three decades of travel industry, destination marketing, strategic planning, crisis management, business development, aviation, hospitality, convention and event experience with some of the world's most iconic and successful travel brands.
He is the founder and president of Magellan Marketing, a strategic advisory firm focused on guidance, counsel, and business development for destinations, travel industry and technology partners.
Michael previously occupied numerous roles during an 18 year tenure at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), including Vice President of Marketing. Responsibilities at the LVCVA included oversight of the authority’s 15 Global Representative Offices, Air Service Development, International Sales, International Public Relations, Digital Engagement, Sports Marketing and Special Events, MICE Sales, Leisure Sales and Domestic Regional Offices.
Before joining the LVCVA in 2000, Michael held a variety of management positions at Las Vegas integrated resort properties including The Mirage, Aladdin, and Riviera Hotel & Casino.
He began his professional career as a travel coordinator at Group Travel Specialists in Tucson, Arizona in 1985, and later progressed to positions at America West Airlines in Phoenix, and the Boulders Resort in Scottsdale, prior to relocating to Las Vegas in 1991.
Michael serves as a mentor in the Hospitality and Tourism Management Master’s program at San Diego State University, is a member of the Las Vegas Bowl Committee, and represents the United States for the Planet Happiness Tourism and Big Data project.
He has been a featured speaker and panelist at multiple international conferences, and is active in many industry organizations, most recently serving on the International Board of Directors for the Pacific Asia Travel Association, the Global Development Committee for Brand USA, and the Global Leadership Committee for Destinations International.
Michael is a passionate swimmer and endurance athlete, having completed multiple triathlons, marathons and open water swimming events.
He is a respected travel industry professional with a proven track record of effective destination marketing and management, strategic planning and global travel experience.
JD Wyneken Committee Chair
JD Wyneken, PhD is a cofounder and Senior Partner at The Bench Strategy, LLC, a professional consulting and performance coaching company focused on innovative workforce development for businesses of all sizes. He is also a Certified Human Potential Coach and co-hosts a Seattle-based radio show and podcast on resilience development. JD has also worked extensively in the nonprofit sector as a strategic planner and program developer after nearly a decade in academia. JD is also a former triathlete and today is focused on crushing his thrice-weekly spin classes, developing functional body strength and flexibility, and continually improving his mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health.
JD’s doctorate is in 20th Century history, a subject he first fell in love with as a child when he learned of his grandparents’ service as US Marines in World War II. This sparked an interest in history that became a passion, and built in him a conviction that the lessons of the Second World War continue to resonate in our own world and should continue to do so in the future. More recently, JD combined his professional expertise in modern German, Russian, East Asian, and Holocaust history into an alternative history novel that he continues to submit for publication.
It is this novel – based on the frightening premise of an Allied defeat on D-Day – that brought JD to Endurance Challenge Normandie; a mutual friend of his and Kate’s heard about JD’s book and said, “I think you two should talk!” And the rest is, well, history. JD now heads up the storytelling and “meaning-making” elements of ECN’s strategic planning, with a focus on the actual history of that fateful day and those following, as well as on identifying which Normandy locations, landmarks, and monuments to highlight for participants along the 80 km challenge course. Further, his focus will also be on helping each participant find and integrate the meaning of that day – and the event – for themselves, all with an eye on keeping the importance of D-Day alive for subsequent generations.
Julia cannell Committee Chair
Normandy Endurance Project Foundation
The Foundation was created to support the event and our work to help keep the memory of D-Day alive through educational materials and a permanent memorial.
