Joel Lambert is an exceptionally skilled former U.S. Navy SEAL who constantly seeks out new endeavours to satisfy his curiosity and test the limits of his ability.
Raised in a small logging town in Washington State, Joel grew up with little direction, but knew what he wanted out of life – something that would challenge him. He recounts a story from when he was 10 years old, about his father's friend who tried out to be a SEAL, but quit during a training exercise where he had to be revived after he was thrown in the water with hands and feet tied behind his back and tested to survive. As a kid, Joel would swim in the deep end of the pool and think about that story. One day, he decided that trying out to be a SEAL would be the ultimate challenge he had been searching for.
At 22, Joel went to a Navy recruiting office and did nothing but train to ensure he was at top physical condition to be accepted. In 1998, Joel joined the Navy and made it through Basic UnderwaterDemolition/SEAL (BUD/S) – the brutal selection course for the SEAL Teams – where he proudly served during his 10 year stint with the military. He was deployed on numerous combat missions to locations including Afghanistan and Kosovo.
Joel operated within SEAL Teams 2 and 4 for eight years. During that time, he planned and participated in over 20 combat missions, headed the mission critical ordnance department containing all weaponry and optics for 16 SEAL operators, and even trained SEAL operators and foreign special operations personnel from Singapore, Thailand, Greece, Egypt, Germany, Netherlands and Estonia.
After his last tour in Afghanistan, he spent two years as a BUD/S instructor – the screening and selectionprogram for the Navy SEALs. He took on this new role with the understanding that helping to create thenext generation of Frogmen is as important as serving in combat. During his time as an instructor, Joe learned the designation "Master Training Specialist" in recognition of superior training and briefing skills and was consistently in the top 10 percent of instructor staff.
Joel has also appeared in a number of small and big screen roles such as Hollywood blockbusters American Sniper and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, among others. Joel is also the star of Discovery's Manhunt series, a real-life game of cat-and-mouse in which Joel faces off against the world's most experienced military, and hunting and tracking units.
