As an engineer, I have worked for some years in the technical side of construction, then construction management itself in Australia before embarking on several years working as a professional photographer. For the past two decades before retiring, I have been involved in humanitarian work beginning in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Libya, and Micronesia with some small projects in Thailand and Malaysia.
For a large part of that time, I have been with the UN. Initially with UNDP in Afghanistan where I ended that mission while serving as the Program Manager and Senior Adviser to an Afghan government ministry. From there I joined IOM in Pakistan, managing a large shelter project that required us to assist 39,000 families rebuild their homes following the 2010 floods. That was followed by managing a team of eighty engineers in constructing several hundred infrastructure projects in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. My most recent mission was also with IOM in Micronesia where I was engaged to manage a reconstruction program across the island nation that had been devastated by a typhoon.
Now since I retired, I have a small farm where along with my wife, we graze sheep and alpaca and raise some chickens. I also spend some time writing for this blog and a local regional newspaper (which has labeled me senior writer) and taking photographs when I am not digging post holes or cutting firewood or looking abstractly at alternate ways to make the delivery of aid more effective.
My newspaper writings can be seen here. https://www.sheppadviser.com.au/author/stephen-hutcheson/