A graduate of Grant Park High School and the University of Manitoba, he has dedicated almost 20 years to international relief work, often at his own peril. A registered nurse, in 1992 he joined the emergency medical group Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) which saw him dispatched to many of the world’s trouble spots including the Kenya-Somali border (1992), where he directed a 200-bed emergency bush hospital; and Afghanistan (1994-95), where he directed a Kabul war hospital project facing frequent air and artillery attacks; as well as working in Chechnya, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Sarajevo and Pakistan. He has worked with the United Nations’ World Food Program (UNWFP) since 1998 and as a member of the UN Disaster Assessment and Coordination Team; assignments taking him to Kosovo, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza, Tanzania and Turkmenistan with emergency deployments to earthquakes/tsunamis in Indonesia and Pakistan. One of Life Magazine’s Heroes of the Year (1998), he is presently an advisor at the UNWFP in Somalia.
