Ray is South African born and educated and he emigrated with his family to Australia in 1987. Most of Ray’s career has been in executive positions in the IT industry, specifically with IBM, EMC and Network Appliance. Ray was able to match his love of sport with his career by being General Manager of the highly successful Sydney University Football Club for ten years and also had a stint with Rugby World Cup winning coach, Jake White, at the Brumbies. He has run his own high-profile Events Management Company for many years, organising successful and profitable events for organisations such as The Australian Rugby Union, Sydney University, the Brumbies, the South Sydney Rabbitohs Rugby League Club and also with not-for-profits such as Lifestart and the Black Dog Institute which works to address depression.

Ray’s love of wildlife started at a very young age when his family visited the Kruger National Park on an annual basis. This passion continued when he became a Founding Director of the Ingwelala Private Game Reserve in the Timbavati area. Although living in Australia, Ray and his wife Margaret have ensured that their children Paul, Kevin and Hayley have been exposed to the wonders of the African wild with regular visits to South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Kenya and Tanzania. 

In May 2013, Ray founded The Australian Rhino Project which is focused on establishing breeding herds of white and black rhinoceros in Australia as an insurance population for the two species which face the threat of extinction in the wild. This project gained serious global momentum - a daunting but extremely important and satisfying venture (and adventure) and while Ray is no longer directly involved, the Project is ongoing with exciting plans to import the rhinos into Australia in the not too distant future. Ray continued his desire to assist I the preservation of endangered species such as rhinos and elephants through his work with the Wildlife Conservation Network, the Communication Conservation for Africa and the Wildlife Protection Program.

Ray has now turned his hand to writing and in 2019 published the Book of Poems for the Rhino. General Johan Jooste of SANParks was kind enough to write the foreword for the book and referred to Ray as a ‘’Rhino Whisperer’’. All proceeds of the sales of the books have been directed to the Black Mambas, the all- female anti-poaching unit. 

In 2020, Ray published a book about the Australian Rhino Project entitled The Crash of Rhinos. The title is a play on words. A ‘’crash’’ is the collective noun for rhinos, but it also describes the carnage wrought by poachers in Africa who have slaughtered more than 10,000 rhinos – three a day - in the past decade to feed the seemingly insatiable demand for rhino horn in some Asian countries. ‘’The Crash of Rhinos’’ traces the origin of the Project to the present situation with the team still working to relocate rhinos to Australia. It is an insightful, frustrating, humorous and humbling story that will make you laugh, cry and tear your hair out in exasperation. In Ray’s own words, “There was extreme joy and there was acute heartache.”

This fascinating story demonstrates what can be achieved by one person with the passion, resilience and dogged persistence to meet challenges, obstacles and the glacial pace of governments - even in the face of a crisis.