"The secretary general of Red Cross was on TV saying a team was being put together - I thought that was very interesting...I got involved through curiosity and interest really and it changed my life."
He joined in 1968, dispatched to the highlands of South Vietnam during the war, part of a welfare team sent by New Zealand Red Cross to work with displaced mountain tribal people.
"I spent 12 months there and the Red Cross virus took hold."
Throughout his life to date, he estimated he had spent about 30 years living overseas including the Pacific, Bangladesh, Africa, and the Maldives.
He said his involvement in the various relief efforts included operational and logistical work, such as getting supply chains moving, ensuring medical care centres were working as they should, and generally dealing with relief operations.
He said some aspects of the work had become more prominent in recent years.
"Compared to when I started the issue of safe water and good sanitation is much more important now, particularly in places with large populations."
He noted progress had been made on supporting local relief workers give appropriate care in times of need.
One example was in Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami when teams of relatively young, trained Indonesian responders were flown in for two weeks at a time.
"They were all working on very gruesome recovery work and at the time were not adequately debriefed.
"That was a big learning curve and the Indonesian Red Cross ended up addressing that problem - these are things we learn as we go along, where we need to do better."
Challenges included operating in regions with harsh political regimes.
"Zimbabwe had a serious drought at the time I was there and there were attempts to restrict us going to certain areas.
"We went to the highest authorities and persuaded them not to stand in the way of humanitarian relief.
"One of the remarkable things about Red Cross is it has a reputation of reaching the people that really need its help."
His New Zealand work included being involved in the support response after the Christchurch earthquake, another situation where psychological impacts were part of the relief effort.
After he joined as a volunteer he sat on the national board for five years, he was secretary-general of New Zealand Red Cross for 13 years, and is the society's national vice-president.
Although he said some years ago he would cut back on the international work, he is still busy with the organisation on its international committee, doing voluntary work in the Pacific, and supporting the development of new Red Cross boards and the resettlement of refugees in this country.
Another overseas trip in the line of duty had been booked this week, however, this time he was heading to Turkey where he would receive his award at an international conference.
