The immaculate backdrop of a cool, glass-walled conference room does not match the story T. Courtenay Jenkins III tells of hiking to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in the middle of the African summer.
Jenkins, 52, of Baltimore, is a commercial real estate broker for Cushman & Wakefield. He returned July 18 from climbing Africa’s highest peak, raising more than $30,000 to date for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in Maryland.
“Climbing a mountain takes a lot of lung power … and that’s one of the things cystic fibrosis takes away from you,” Jenkins said. “These people climb a mountain every day just to get out of bed.”
While Jenkins said he’s always loved to take adventures, this one was special because he got to take it with his daughter, Annie Jenkins, 22.
Jenkins and Annie’s mother gave Annie a trip around the world when she finished college. Then, unexpectedly, Jenkins said Annie called him from an ocean away with a special request.
“She called me up and said, ‘Dad, I want you to meet me in Tanzania,’” he said. “Anytime a daughter asks you to do something like that, you do it unless you’re physically unable.”
Annie said she knew her dad wouldn’t pass up the chance to take an adventure with her.
“I asked my Dad to join me because he and I thrive best in adventurous situations. We both are thrill seekers, so this was right up our alley,” she wrote in an e-mail from China. “He is the best companion I know for this kind of thing.”
Jenkins and his wife, Charlotta, have organized a luncheon benefiting the foundation for two years at the Grand National Steeplechase Races in Butler.
“I decided that at one of the events I was chairing I was going to announce that I was doing this for cystic fibrosis,” Jenkins said.
One donor gave $1 per foot hiked, Jenkins said. Kilimanjaro is almost 20,000 feet high.
While both Jenkins and his daughter said they enjoyed the trip, Annie said she wasn’t ready to do it again immediately.
“I do see another trek in the future for me and my dad,” Annie wrote. “Mount McKinley perhaps? I hear Alaska is beautiful in the summertime.”