R. Stefan Templeton (born July 15, 1967) is the founder of the SPEAR Project (Standing Patrol for Emergency Assessment and Response). Of American and Norwegian descent, he is the grandson of the civil rights leader Dr. Furman L. Templeton. A linguist educated in Oxford and at the Sorbonne, Stefan Templeton studied shipbroking in 1990 while working as a structural weld inspector on oil platforms in the North Sea, having completed a rigorous training in deep-sea saturation diving in France, and went on to become an airborne search-and-rescue paramedic and disaster management specialist. He currently holds the rank of Commander in based in Cruas, France and has led and co-ordinated civil-military operations most recently in Padang, Indonesia.