Doug Stevens

Doug was born in the King Country and grew up on a sheep and cattle farm. He attended Waikato University where he gained a Master of Social Science degree with honours and then trained as a secondary school  teacher. He and his wife Bev travelled extensively through Asia and spent over eight years working as a teacher in London before returning to New Zealand.

On returning to New Zealand Doug took up a position as Head of Department at Manukau Polytechnic (now Manukau Institute of Technology) responsible for all courses related to providing education for long term unemployed adults. He moved from this position after 17 years to take up the role of Executive Assistant to the Vice Chancellor at Auckland University of Technology. From there he took up the position of Dean of Arts and Humanities at Nelson Marlborough Institution of Technology.

Since leaving the tertiary sector Doug has developed New Zealand’s largest fishing website www.nzfishing.com. This has afforded him the lifestyle of his dreams where he gets to “research” rivers and lakes around the country and indulge his lifelong passion for fly fishing and the outdoors. He is attracted to UnitedFuture because of its strong stance on protecting our outdoor heritage.

Doug has two children, Kate and Anna. Anna is at Otago University while Kate has taken up a Commonwealth scholarship to study for a PhD at Cambridge University. His wife, Bev , works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.