I’ve been in Papua New Guinea for 20 years now. This year is actually my 20th year.
I came over with Post-Courier, worked there for three years then worked as EMTV general manager for five years.
When I was at EMTV, I produced a program called “Happy Gardener” with Justin Tkatchenko. We ended up doing about 22 episodes of that. And that took us all around Papua New Guinea; places that most people will never get to see.
What we were able to do was record it on video and put it out as a regular documentary series. And that gave viewers a good insight into Papua New Guinea at that time.
After that I went out onto Air Niugini as the executive marketing manager.
We rebranded the aircraft, did new livery there and redesigned the uniforms.
While I was there I also created the “Destinations Loyalty Program”.
After that I went to IPBC (Independent Public Business Corporation), Kumul Holdings, and it was around that time, probably after Air Niugini, that I got into publishing hardcover books.
The first book that I did was The Tonda – I did that with Justin Tkatchenko and Rocky Roe, the much-loved photographer.
It’s a large format hardcover book with some beautiful photography in there. And once again, the idea of it was to create exposure for parts of Papua New Guinea that most people never get to go to.
After that I did a project for Hargy Oil Palms in Bialla, West New Britain Province, and that was for their 40th anniversary. That also involved a hardcover book and the owners of Hargy Oil Palm, a Belgium company, were very impressed with it. In fact, it inspired them to do their 100th anniversary book along, pretty well, the same format that I did.
The Hargy book was done with Rocky Roe again. We went into Bialla and went all around the oil palms and took some amazing photography.
After that, I had a project last year with Charlie Lynn. Now, Charlie Lynn walked the Kokoda almost a hundred times. He missed out because of COVID-19, he missed out on his 100th trek. He was meant to do it in April last year (2020) but unfortunately, the book ended up being the 100th trek.
I also published a book of poetry for PNG author, Rashmii Bell titled Roses at Eora Creek.
They’re available for sale at the Adventure Kokoda website, but I don’t get involved in the selling of books. I prefer to donate books to schools and local causes.
And I’m donating books at the moment in Lae because I’m based in Lae.