Co-Chairman, Crohn’s and Colitis New Zealand

Brian is the founding chair of Crohn's and Colitis New Zealand. Brian has extensive relationships with other Crohn's and colitis organisations internationally and represents the organisation's interests at government and ministry level. He has overseen significant improvements in access to a range of medications, improved communications with medical professionals from gastroenterologists to dieticians and psychologists, and has directed the development of a network of support groups throughout the country to reduce isolation and improve awareness of these devastating diseases.

Brian was diagnosed with IBD as a young man and has seen many changes in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of IBD. He has always passionately believed that the disease has long lasting effects on people, quite apart from the day-to-day aspects of physically coping with a chronic illness. It is the isolation that these diseases cause and the effects on education and people's ability to work that have always inspired Brian's efforts to gain recognition.

It is these things that initially motivated Brian to set up the Crohn's and Colitis Wellington support group and the national organisation, Crohn's and Colitis New Zealand in 2010.

Gastroenterologist, Hutt Valley DHB and Co-Chairman, Crohn's and Colitis New Zealand

Richard is a gastroenterologist from the United States, who moved to NZ in 2007. He is a graduate of Columbia University and the University of Illinois and did his GI training at Emory University in Atlanta. In the US he was in private practice, but also on the faculty of the University of Washington School of Medicine. He currently is a GI consultant at Hutt Valley and Wairarapa DHBs and has a strong interest in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. When he lived in the States, he was a trustee and past President of the NW Chapter of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America. He helped organise one of the first camps for children with IBD in the States and his dream was to be involved in creating a camp here in NZ. He became a Kiwi in 2012. He has a wife and three daughters, two of whom also live in NZ.