Explore Other Luminaries:

Ace Bailey
Andrew Quinn
Dave Alford
Don Carson

Dzeneta Arslanovic
French Thompson
Jason Kaplan
Stan Utley

Leader of the Pack

Each year, Experience Scottsdale profiles a selection of local celebrities, from restaurateurs and sports figures to artists and adventurers. We invite you to meet this year’s luminaries and find out what they have to say about living, working and enjoying life in Scottsdale.

Zev Nadler spent most of his adult life working as the CEO of a local computer firm before a series of life-changing events prompted him to sell the company for a more laid-back lifestyle.

"After four months of me watching my wife cook dinner, she soundly kicked me out of the kitchen and told me to go do something," jokes Nadler, owner of Desert Wolf Tours. His love of adventure and the outdoors was the catalyst for starting the company, which offers Sonoran Desert excursions via the TomCar.

Originally created and used by the Israeli defense forces, the TomCar is an off-road vehicle that allows riders to self-pilot tours through the desert. Though its robust design might seem intimidating at first glance, Nadler insists that it's easy to control and credits the car's high-tech suspension.

"It just reaches out and greets those rocks for you," says Nadler. "It's an extremely comfortable ride that allows us to take people of pretty much any age. We even take women who are up to four months pregnant."

While sitting behind the wheel of a TomCar certainly has its thrill factor, Nadler says that guests are mostly astounded by the Sonoran Desert's natural beauty. "We are the youngest living desert on the planet. We're not the Gobi Desert, we're not the Mojave. Things actually grow and blossom here," Nadler says. Taking care to preserve the natural setting is important to Desert Wolf Tours, which is a sponsor of Tread Lightly and Leave No Trace.

In addition to TomCar tours, the company also offers firearms instruction emphasizing control, safety and understanding of a gun's engineering. "I love off-roading and I love teaching people how to shoot responsibly. I figured if I could do something that would teach them how to do both, with professionalism and respect for our desert, then that would be a good thing."