Australian Peacekeeping Memorial Project

Ron was an Australian diplomat for 38 years and for the past 10 years has taught international relations and applied diplomacy. He is a Visiting Fellow at the Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy at the ANU in Canberra and a Senior Special Fellow of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Geneva. He represents the UN Association of Australia on the APMP Committee.

In his diplomatic career Ron had eight overseas postings in South East Asia and Europe, three of them with the rank of Ambassador. His last two postings were Australia's Permanent Representative to the United Nations first in Geneva and next in Vienna. In Vienna he was concurrently Australia's Ambassador to Austria, Slovenia , Croatia and Boznia-Herzegovina (during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia). In that capacity he saw at first hand the work of peacekeepers and the difficult situations they face. He also spent half his time at headquarters in Canberra, where he specialised in international security issues and was for two years head of the International Security Division.