Bob Douglas, now aged 89, trained initially in medicine and developed an interest in public health, epidemiology and prevention. He was a closely associated with the development and global licensure of pneumococcal vaccine and was appointed in 1989 to head up the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population health at the Australian National University. He retired from that post in 2001 and has been actively involved during his retirement years on analysis of problems confronting Australia and the world, both through an NGO which he founded and chaired for 12 years, called Australia 21 and through a range of community organisations.