Cribb-Fox is of Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa. His marae is Hurunui o Rangi and he grew up in Masterton in the generation when his people wanted to revitalise their language and culture.
"I was born into the time when my family and my community were really hungry for language and I and many of my generation found ourselves involved in the Māori language community."
He went to kohanga reo and kura, and only started formally learning English at school in Years 7 and 8. He spoke on the marae for the first time at the age of 9.
He did kapa haka right through secondary school and was third in a national speech competition.
Committed to a life of revitalising language and culture and married to a woman from Whanganui, he worked as an assistant teacher at Te Wānanga until taking on the Level 6 job this year.
His children will go to kohanga and kura, and he tries to make the world he lives in as Māori as he can.
The biggest challenge was the effort it takes, he said.
"Sometimes you just don't have the energy to switch languages.
"It's easier to speak when your relationship with the person is quite heavily defined by the language or space or the place you are at is a designated place for speaking, or confined to a timeframe.
"Some of it's shyness or not wanting to offend or embarrass someone. The other half is the effort of committing to speaking Māori and finding another way to get them to understand what you are saying."
It's wonderful for Cribb-Fox to see more and more people embracing te reo Māori.
"We assumed, when classes started here in Whanganui, that we had tapped into the pool of people eager to learn and it would dwindle over time. But with the reinvigoration of language and it becoming more prominent in the community it's kept the numbers up," he said.
"My view of te reo is that it's unique to New Zealand, so embracing te reo is an act of patriotism. When we embrace it, we are just embracing the uniqueness of our country."
