About

Mike had the privilege of being raised in small-town New Zealand (Ohakune) in the nineteen forties and fifties prior to gaining a Massey University degree in agricultural science in the early nineteen sixties. He learned about farmers and their ways while working for eight years as a Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) Farm Advisory Officer on the South Island’s West Coast which was a good introduction to his next job as Agricultural Attaché, New Zealand House, London.

Following his return to New Zealand in the mid nineteen seventies, Mike and his family took up residence in Lower Hutt while he built a career in MAF’s Head Office, the last six years as Assistant Director General during the challenging last period of the Muldoon government and the early years of the Lange administration. In 1987 Mike and his family shifted to Christchurch, where he worked in general management in the meat industry for a short period before running his own commercial glasshouse property on the edge of the Port Hills producing tomatoes and carnation flowers for the local market.

Mike returned to Wellington in 1990 to take up a general management position in the (then) NZ Trade Development Board for eight years and since 1998 has led a number of international and community projects working from his home in Plimmerton.

He is a keen futurist, being a Board member of the NZ Futures Trust for ten years and Chair for five years, in the first decade of the century. During his career in both the public and private sectors, Mike travelled extensively in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America. He was an ‘early adopter’ of digital technology and is a keen proponent of broadband internet technology for maintaining his contacts and keeping abreast of international affairs.