"I guess you can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy. I have a bias towards farm people because I hold them in huge respect and I enjoy working with them.
"I have enjoyed the physical side of farm work, but also I enjoy the technical and political sides of farming. I've stayed in it because it interests me, because I'm surrounded by people I enjoy and thirdly because I think it's very, very necessary for farmers and farming to be well represented in every forum to best advantage."
In Kevin's view, the biggest challenge facing agriculture is that an overwhelmingly urbanised population no longer has the contact with the country that there used to be, so food has become separated from farming.
"The effective communication of the technical and practical issues facing farmers to the wider population is critical. We must succeed in that, otherwise we will be increasingly hindered by unworkable regulation."
Kevin and his wife Lorraine farmed in Central Otago (1962-73) and in Mid Canterbury (1973-98).
Kevin was actively involved in Young Farmers Clubs and in 1972 was awarded a Nuffield Scholarship to the UK, where he studied wool processing, agricultural training and farmer political organisations.
During the 1980s Kevin was chairman of the Feds' Mid Canterbury Meat & Wool section and was elected to the Meat & Wool national executive.
He vividly recalls the one-in-100-year drought that hit South Island east coast districts in 1986 and running through to 1989.
The fallout from dismantling of subsidies was also biting hard.
"We had hyper-inflation at that stage - 22-23 per cent annual increases in on farm costs, with interest rates at 20-23 per cent, and a further 10 per cent penalty rate. Most people were on penalty rates. So it was a time that farming was bleeding badly."
Funded from private and government money, the NZ Rural Trust was set up with its main role being to act as a mediation service between farmers and their creditors.
Federated Farmers Mid Canterbury Province searched for someone to take on a short-term contract to steer that work but no one suitable could be found.
"For some extraordinary reason I said 'I think I can do that'. I did 18 months as Rural Trust co-ordinator, which was the hardest 18 months of my life in one respect, but I learned a lot about myself and the resilience of farming families in that time because it was pretty bloody out there."
Kevin put a manager on his sheep and beef farm, leaving the dairy unit to sharemilkers, and dedicated himself to the role fulltime. Following that Rural Trust contract, the Mid Canterbury executive appointed him provincial chief executive in 1990.
"That's really where it began and I've never left."
When Federated Farmers restructured in 1998, Kevin was employed by the national organisation as a senior policy adviser, based in Ashburton.
He's worked on all sorts of portfolios and issues, including transport, local government, the grains industry, transport and adverse events.
Kevin is running the NZ Groundspread Fertiliser Association as its executive director and is still involved with the Fertiliser Quality Council.
Kevin's service is not restricted to farming circles. He has been a Justice of the Peace since 1991, gave a decade of service on the board of the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices of the Peace Associations, served two terms as its president, and was president of the Australasian Council of Justices of the Peace Associations.
An Associate of the Mediators and Arbitrators Institute, Kevin specialised in that topic as part of a post graduate diploma in business studies from Massey in 2005.
"The successful management of disputes is something that has interested me over the years and I thought at that time it would be useful to get qualifications in it. There will always be disputes between red-blooded people. They key is to manage that energy to everyone's advantage."
Somehow he has also fitted in service on the board of Advance Ashburton Community Trust, the Anglican Church, Toastmasters, the Mid Canterbury Choir, sports clubs, musical and dramatic societies.
Federated Farmers general policy manager Nick Clark says Kevin has also undertaken much voluntary work for the Feds above and beyond his paid role.
"He has been a great mentor and adviser to a succession of its elected representatives, locally and nationally, and is a key member of the Mid Canterbury Federated Farmers Charitable Trust and the Mid Canterbury Emergency Relief Trust, where he has been instrumental in co-ordinating responses to adverse events such as droughts and snowstorms."
Kevin counts it as "a privilege of age" to be a mentor to up and coming Feds' staff and elected officers.
"I hold the rising generation of farmers in huge admiration because the technology they're dealing with is so much greater than the technology of my time.
"In my time we were able to double production relatively easily. We were growing wheat crops at four tonnes to the hectare but now they're growing feed wheat at 12-14 tonnes, as a result of improved cultivars, more efficient of water and machinery and greater understanding of nutrient requirements.
"There's a lot to it these days but I have a great deal of optimism for the rising generation of farmers. So it's a privilege, when you've been around for a while, to be able to help people both within the staff of Feds and outside.
"It's something that every person a little older should do."
Through the years of service to Feds and community organisations Kevin attributes his award of a QSM to wife Lorraine "who has always backed me in all my endeavours".