During his 39 year career he served as President, Vice President and Board Chair of the Australasian Fire & Emergency Service Authorities’ Council, Deputy Chair of the NSW State Emergency Management Committee, Australian Director of the International Fire Chiefs Association of Asia, NSW representative on the Australian Emergency Management Committee, Australian representative on the UN’s International Search & Rescue Advisory Committee, and as a member of the NSW Bushfire Coordinating Committee. He is currently Chair of the NSW Ambulance Service Advisory Board.

In 2004 he was invited to address the International Fire Science Conference in Ireland on the impacts of climate change on emergency services. As acting Chair of the NSW State Emergency Management Committee in 2005-6 he re-established a Climate Change Working Group focussed on adaptation and was a member of the NSW Government’s Climate Change Council from 2007-16.

He worked with bushfire fighting authorities in the USA, Canada, France and Spain during a Churchill Fellowship in 1995, studied at the US National Fire Academy in 2001-02, and represented Australian emergency services at many international forums. Upon retirement he rejoined the volunteer bushfire brigade where he started in 1972, and also volunteers as a bush regenerator.