Take a deep breath, there's yet another compendium of them, including chairing the Antarctic Heritage Trust and Radio New Zealand board member.
For brevity's sake, we'll pass on completing the list and return to his mower man days.
"For the first couple of summers, I was on the end of a slasher then promoted to the mower ... wonderful, I'd buy a paper, prop it up on the steering wheel reading as I worked."
Local reserves aren't his only horticultural endeavour. On OE in London with his New York-born wife, Lyn (they met at Virginia University), the couple answered an ad for housekeeper and gardener. It was for former Governor-General Sir Bernard Fergusson's Scottish estate; the Fergussons and Easts remain close.
Back home, he joined his late father's law practice, East Brewster, specialising in criminal work, "quite a culture change but interesting and included several murder trials".
He joined the Environmental Defence Society and Rotorua's Conservation Society committee, with cleaning up the region's lakes its focus.
Named one of 1976's Young Conservators of the Year, his award was presented by newly elected Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. That he would one day become a member of Muldoon's Cabinet never occurred to the young East, although by then his political antenna was tuned into the local political scene.
At 28, he was elected to the then Rotorua City Council and, as the highest-polling candidate, automatically became deputy mayor, "surprising myself more than anyone".
With local elections in top gear, his views on present councils are pertinent. He's adamant councillors should "stick to their knitting ... looking after people and services, only spend on essentials. A socialist mayor like Ray Boord was very good at reminding councillors it was the poor old truck driver from Western Heights who had to pay his rates, that was our benchmark."
Boord had lost Rotorua's parliamentary seat to National's Harry Lapwood. At his urging, East replaced him in 1978.
"It was a marginal electorate and I had a strong opponent in my good friend Peter Tapsell. We campaigned with gusto; I won by a slim majority."
East served his parliamentary apprenticeship when the dictum of former Prime Minister Sir Keith Holyoake remained. "New arrivals were told to shut up and breathe through their noses; it was wise advice."
A lolly mix of portfolios followed. As attorney-general he grappled with a range of weighty issues including two International Court appearances arguing against France's Pacific nuclear testing.
He held the Rotorua seat until 1986, replaced by one of National's own, Max Bradford, but was returned as a list MP.
"It was the new MMP era, I was disappointed not to be representing the people of Rotorua."
He ranks that, along with being dumped from Cabinet by new PM Jenny Shipley as his political career's lows.
Naturally we ask why, after being so highly ranked, didn't he make the cut?
"You'd have to ask her that, we were never close."
However, East was handed "a wonderful consolation prize", his three years as New Zealand's "man in London ... one of the high points of my life".
But that appointment also had its downs: the Paddington rail crash, which claimed two Kiwi lives and Sir Peter Blake's Amazon slaying. "There were funerals to arrange for families ... terribly sad."
Counterbalancing the tragedies was an overnight stay at Windsor Castle.
"A very genuine and kind gesture which showed the Queen's affection for New Zealand."
Fellow dinner guests included crime writer PD James.
"What impressed me greatly was the effort the Queen had gone to producing New Zealand memorabilia, including letters from the then Duke of Edinburgh who'd visited Rotorua in the 1860s."
Royalty apart, East has met Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II.
"Mandela said there are great opportunities in New Zealand, the Pope told me he'd climbed mountains here as a student."
Would he be happy to re-enter the parliamentary paddock?
"It's changed dramatically, MMP's made the House even more fractious, there aren't the cross-party friendships between members there were in my day."
