Today, Col. Brian Ward,
the visionary founder director of Asian
Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) would
have been 75. He was shy of allowing his
birthday to be known for the fact that he
shared this date with another icon of the
humanitarian movement,
Henri Dunant in whose honor today is
commemorated as Red Cross Day.
Col. Brian was a
far‐sighted leader and laid firm foundations
for the ADPC. He was the lead author
commissioned by the UN in the initial
scoping study of ADPC in 1985 where he
dialogued with a range of stakeholders in
nine countries and a number of UN agencies
and was then invited to becoming the first
Director of ADPC, a position he held till
his first retirement in 1992. By this time
he had firmly established ADPC as a vibrant
and relevant service oriented center for the
region.
Though always available
for consultation to his successors, he
emerged from retirement to take a position
on ADPC’s interim board when it was first
constituted in May 1998 and was honored with
the title of Director Emeritus in October
1998 from which position he helped craft the
ADPC foundation charter and steer processes
in partnership with donors to bring on board
a Chair, Vice Chair and Executive Director
by May 1999.
He remained as Special
Advisor to ADPC till his premature death in
June 2004 and during this period won the
Sasakawa Award in July 2001 and chaired the
international organisation task force at
ADPC to assist Dr Suvit Yodmanee in his
dream of making ADPC an international
organisation.
With happy memories of a
great man.
Asian Disaster
Preparedness Center
