A new challenge came when his archaeology professor at UCLA invited Jeff to join with several classmates to work on an archaeological excavation in southern France.  Of course, he accepted, but because this was still in the middle of the Vietnam War and able-bodied men of his age were subject to the military draft, he needed to be granted permission to travel abroad, even for a summer doing important research.  He duly applied to his Draft Board, but his request was denied and, even worse, he was called to take a physical exam, leaving him one step closer to being drafted into the Army. Jeff needed to consider his options.  He could volunteer and go to Officer Candidate School, which had some advantages, but Jeff knew himself well enough to know that the military was unlikely to be a good match for his talents and nature conservation principles.

He was still very willing to serve his country, but instead of the military he applied for the Peace Corps, an independent agency that was formally part of the US Department of State.  Its mandate is to train and deploy well qualified volunteers to provide international development assistance to countries that require such support. The application form included listing qualifications but did not allow applicants to request being assigned to a specific developing country.  Jeff was hoping for a tropical country with rich wildlife and interesting cultures, far away from the Vietnam War.  Several weeks after submitting his application, he was accepted into the Peace Corps and was assigned to work on public health in Thailand.  He was a bit worried about being assigned to a country so close to Vietnam, and one that was itself sending troops to fight alongside American soldiers and even provided airbases that sent B-52 bombers and F-4 Phantom fighter-bombers to attack parts of Vietnam.

He had a nice training session for two months on the Big Island of Hawaii, where he learned to speak Thai and became very well aware of Thailand’s health issues.  Following his training, his group of newly-minted Peace Corps Volunteers arrived in Thailand for some additional training and introduction to the realities of the Kingdom of Thailand.  On his way to Phang-nga, a scenic province of forest-covered limestone mountains on Thailand’s Andaman Sea coast, he stopped off in Hua Hin on the Gulf of Thailand, which he found to be a pleasant place indeed.

Jeff enjoyed Phang-nga, which was rich in birdlife and not far from Phuket, a tourist town where he found a very useful bird guide to Thailand’s rich feathered fauna.  This was written by a Thai physician, Dr. Boonsong Lekagul, and he also found a magazine, “Conservation News of Southeast Asia” that Dr Boonsong edited.  Appreciating his work, he sent a letter to him at his Association for Conservation of Wildlife (ACW) in Bangkok asking him a few questions about Thai wildlife and telling Dr Boonsong that his zoo background stimulated his interest in Thailand’s wildlife. A few weeks later, Jeff received a letter from Dr. Boonsong that invited him to visit next time he came to Bangkok.

A month or so later Jeff was in Bangkok for Peace Corps business and duly arranged an appointment to visit Dr. Boonsong’s headquarters, a wonderful natural history museum adjacent to his polyclinic where his physician sons were also based.  Following a productive meeting, Dr. Boonsong helped arrange for Jeff to extend his Peace Corps service for another two years, but this time working with Dr. Boonsong to support his writing of a seminal book, “Mammals of Thailand” and also spending time doing fieldwork throughout the country.  Since Dr. Boonsong was also a keen golfer, it was a wonderful relationship. 

Dr Boonsong is regarded as the “Father of Conservation” in Thailand and Jeff credits Dr Boonsong with helping him establish his life-path. Jeff’s interest in, and admiration of, Dr Boonsong’s pioneering conservation work with forests and wildlife was profound and so he thoroughly enjoyed his second stint with the Peace Corps, taking part in what was essentially an internship with Dr Boonsong and becoming the first Peace Corps volunteer working with him in nature conservation.

 This was a life-changing choice, as it was during this time that Jeff had a chance encounter with a young Thai woman who brought a group of orphaned Cambodian children to visit Dr. Boonsong.  She was the Director of Friends of the Earth Thailand and her family was very close to the family of Dr. Boonsong’s wife.  She wanted the orphans to be reminded of the natural wealth of Cambodia before being sent to France, and Dr. Boonsong knew Cambodia very well.  Jeff was duly impressed by the young lady and over the subsequent months the pair became close friends and subsequently got married while working in Indonesia supporting conservation projects throughout the country. Forty years, and two sons later, Jeff and Pojanan’s marriage is still strong. He recounted his role in the delivery of his baby sons in Switzerland, catching them as they emerged from their mother, a poignant and powerful recollection for him, a proud family man.

Jeff is acutely aware of the challenges facing our world as a result of global warming, over-exploitation of natural resources, and a wide range of environmental pollutants that affect human health.  He laments that it might take considerable human suffering before the vast majority of the world’s population will comprehend the seriousness of the issues affecting life on planet Earth. He sees stopping the use of fossil fuels and the uptake of solar panels as one important step forward, and encourages people to reduce, reuse and recycle. “We should define ourselves by our actions and not by our purchases”, he told me. Jeff admires the work of Sweden’s Greta Thunberg, because although she is young, she is principled and advocates for our world. He sees the internet as a double-edged sword, as it offers easily-accessible knowledge yet at the same time can circulate deliberate disinformation.

Now undertaking the more emotional and complex task of writing his memoire, Jeff is enjoying the finer things in life: golfing, relaxing with a book in his garden by the pool, sipping a glass of red wine and nibbling on dark chocolate while thinking about what to write next.

I too enjoy a good book and recommend Jeff’s book, “Parks for Life”.  It is so good that it is continually being “souvenired” from its home on the coffee table in BeWell Medical Centre, so Jeff has to provide a further copy repeatedly.