James Dickson, Christchurch, QSM
For services to the New Zealand Customs Service. Mr Dickson has been employed by the Customs Service for 38 years. For 31 of these he has been a key member of the Customs Drug Detector Dog Team. He has made a significant contribution to the establishment and on-going development of the highly specialist area of drug detector dog and handler training. He has worked closely with other agencies, such as the New Zealand Police, the Department of Corrections, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the Aviation Security Service, willingly imparting his experience to dog handlers in these organisations. He is the prime handler for the training and certification of six drug detector dogs, each making significant contributions to preventing illegal drugs, medications and contraband from entering New Zealand. Mr Dickson often gives public presentations, along with his dogs, and has featured on television programmes such as Border Patrol.