In the years since, Mr. Hislaire led the development of major regional programmes in West Africa and Asia for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. For the last eight years he has been a consultant based in Switzerland providing advisory and capacity building services to the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, for several agencies of the United Nations System and for international NGOs.

Mr. Hislaire adds great value to ICMCs effort to broaden and deepen its operations in some 30 countries and worldwide network of 172 members. A Swiss-American national, fluent in French and English, Mr. Hislaire will take over the responsibility of working with regional directors and a field staff of over 400 currently engaged in ICMC's nine core programming areas: return and reintegration, local integration, refugee resettlement (including cultural orientation and rapid deployment), services to extremely vulnerable individuals, counter trafficking and rescue, NGO capacity building, technical cooperation with governments, emergency response, and advocacy. Mr. Hislaire will provide leadership and direction in ICMC's plan to expand operational activities to serve broader purposes within the field of migration and development,

As ICMC welcomes Peter, the ICMC family expresses gratitude and its best wishes to Mr. Patterson, for service not only in Geneva headquarters, but also in Afghanistan, Albania, Burundi, Croatia, Guinea and Pakistan, where he built and directly managed programs that changed and saved the lives of tens of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons over the years. Ken will be missed.