I obtained my B.Sc. (Agr.) in 1967 from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and by M.Sc. (1970) and Ph.D. (1973) in Zoology from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC. My research has focused on arthropods, notably insects and crustaceans, and for about 30 years or so, has involved marine population modelling, stock assessments and conservation biology as a research scientist for Fisheries and Oceans Canada. On the aside, I maintained an interest in botany, especially temperate shrub and tree species, sold orchids for about 15 years, and then shifted my interest over to rhododendrons. I joined the American Rhododendron Society in 1995, have an extensive rhododendron garden, and perhaps the largest vireya collection in Canada, with about 130 species and hybrids. I have travelled in southeast Asia twice (to Yunnan, China, in 2005 and to Sikkim, India, in 2015) with the Rhododendron Species Foundation exploring for rhododendrons and other plants. In 2009, I became editor of the ARS journal (JARS) and in 2017, created the online journal Rhododendrons International (RI), which is distributed freely to all the world’s rhododendron societies and can be accessed by anyone at https://www.rhododendron.org/ri-index.htm. RI is a journal in which many Rhododendron Research network articles will be published, especially those that summarise ongoing research efforts so that both researchers and citizen-science participants can keep up to date in what is happening in rhododendron disciplines outside their own.