Bringing people together by creating over 300 events has been at the heart of the way Bob has worked throughout his career and it has been a great privilege to collaborate with many people to help change the way we understand and manage the marine, coastal and water environment.

Bringing people together has been at the heart of the way I have worked throughout my career. My inspiration for the marine environment and diving science was fired by attending my first conferences run by the Underwater Association in London. At these meetings world leading scientists showed that it was possible to use diving to understand our underwater world. These meetings were an inspiration and since the 1970s I have enjoyed bringing people together to understand a huge range of topics covering the marine and water environment to cover a wide range of environmental issues. This has involved over 300 events, conferences and workshops, often involving high levels of  audience and organisational interaction, participation and collaboration. These meetings through effective communication, networking and problem solving have led to the creation of many new organisations, networks and initiatives. From 1994 my interests and skills in this area evolved into running a full scale event organising business – CMS – Communications & Management for Sustainability.

Some of the notable highlights included major conferences series including: 

• Marine Conservation Society conferences from 1979 – 1991 the largest marine conservation conferences in the UK
• Coastal Futures conferences from 1994 – current – the largest marine and coastal environmental and sustainability conference in the UK
• One hundred conferences (2003 -2014) for the Chartered Institution of Water & Environmental Management (CIWEM) covering the water environment, flooding, water quality, drought, management and policy; the award of an Honorary CIWEM Fellowship
• Bob’s consultancy Communications and Management for Sustainability worked on and developed many specific conferences and workshops from 1994 – 2014 covering ICZM, marine spatial planning, MPAs, the ecosystem approach, the Marine & Coastal Access Act, aggregate extraction, offshore wind and fisheries

Many meetings focussed on particular themes and this included work to initiate and develop organisations including the Marine Conservation Society, Marine Forum, Shark Trust, National Aquatic Litter Group, Seabed User & Developer Group and the Coastal Based Approach (=>3Cs) and EAST Marine Ecosystems. More recently Bob’s work has focussed on supporting the development of regional marine ecosystems approaches, not least with the South West Marine Ecosystems programme.