Chris Smart
At my age, a request from the IDRC Alumni for words about a former colleague usually means a eulogy or obituary, dutifully done in fond and sad remembrance. So, a request for words to celebrate a fully functioning, former colleague is a surprise, dutifully done in respectful admiration. And it’s easy. IDRC alumnus Neill McKee is an open book; actually, four open books, three of them prize winners!
While I was editing the IDRC Alumni Bulletin, I delighted in the Publications feature. Authoring four books made Neill a champion in that league of admired IDRC colleagues. But first, my credentials for writing about Neill.
We go back to 1968 when we were at UBC’s Fort Camp for orientation for CUSO assignments as secondary school teachers on the island of Borneo, Malaysia; Neill to Sabah, I and Georgina to Sarawak. We interacted through what I now think of as the “Church of CUSO” and, perhaps predictably, with careers in international development, met again in Ottawa in the mid-1970s. We were neighbours and DIYers, fixing old houses, who occasionally met around a radial arm saw.
But, for me, the memorable moment was a meeting in 1979 at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, where IDRC was hosting discussions following the UN Conference on Science and Technology for Development that had been held in Vienna. Neill, who was then IDRC’s filmmaker, saw me as I entered the museum foyer and came across to ask ‘Wasn’t Dr. Geoffrey Oldham one of your Profs at the University of Sussex?’ Neill said Geoff was around the corner and off I went to find him laying out IDRC bumph. Geoff looked up and welcomed me by name. A chat with Geoff later in the day lead to my landing in IDRC’s Science and Technology Policy Unit two weeks later. You see what I owe Neill.
Now, back to the author, the IDRC man in four books. Neill merits more than a friend’s scatter of anecdotes. So, I write as Neill’s agent to entice you to read what the man himself has to say about his “Time and Tide.” You can get the overview with a visit to Alumni Publications; for the big picture, visit Neill here. Taking the books in order from childhood to retirement I provide prompts to invite reading.
Kid on the Go! will reveal to IDRC colleagues how Neill got started on his international career by escaping his polluted hometown in Ontario, which was helping the American Army in the Vietnam fiasco by making Agent Orange.
Prize-winning Finding Myself in Borneo reveals why Neill wrote to and got a reply from J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, who joined Neill’s North Borneo Frodo Society! Neill does not have furry feet.
In prize-winning My University of the World, you will learn why Ivan Head, IDRC’s second president, considered Neill the corporate encyclopedia and the Centre’s GPS when anyone wanted to cover IDRC projects and researchers. It will also reveal to IDRC colleagues of his era why Neill lugged that folding backless chair to meetings!
Learn why Neill was given a year off from IDRC to get a Master in Communication that would later lead to work for UNICEF as a team leader based in Asia and Africa. There, he started many multimedia projects, including an animated film series called Meena on girls’ education and other rights, first working with Hanna-Barbera, in Hollywood. Neill then headed to Johns Hopkins University for eight years, including a three-year stint in Russia. He finally ended his career as director of a large development communication effort in Washington, D.C.
Read prize-winning Guns and God in My Genes for a master class on family history, with research that involved travel through the highways and byways of North America
Neill continues to write, now working on a mainly fictional (in characters, but non-fictional in facts) history of New Mexico, where he resides with Beth.
Bulletin 79
January 2026