In the annals of ‘where are they now?' Rotorua folk may like to know the imposing frame of Roger Gordon is casting even longer shadows in Cambridge.

But not, we hasten to add, over-archingly so.

For the man who moulded the Rotorua Chamber of Commerce and increased its membership almost ten-fold over nine years but who was jemmied out of his job as chief executive in 2014 has found his feet and is now, in a sense, a Cambridge blue.

Several weeks ago, Roger was one of five successful candidates in the Cambridge riding in the Waipa District Council. He finished fifth in a lengthy field; also in the field Dennis Finn, another former Rotorua identity.

In 2014, in an exit typically inimical of Rotorua in recent years – the list has lengthened – Roger lost his role as CEO of the Rotorua Chamber of Commerce.

The spat, but not the intrinsic details, did reach the public domain; in May 2014 after he left, the action drew an apology to Roger in Rotorua's daily newspaper. Even so, the belated amelioration was hardly career enhancing.

Since, it has been onwards and upwards for the man who started life in Rotorua 32 years earlier as general manager of the Geyserland Hotel, with his wife Jo, who continues to work as a personal assistant for a Rotorua property developer.

The boil of 2014 has been lanced. Almost immediately, he landed a job at Cambridge. His arrival was propitious. It coincided with concerns that an expressway bypass would affect business in the town.

On applying to promote Cambridge – somehow his application became confused with a vacancy at a retirement home – Roger was asked to provide a plan.

The burghers of Cambridge, presciently looking to raise the town's profile, then offered him a job – 'for peanuts”, he says.

Those peanuts, as if a musty alchemy to Roger's fortunes, became gold nuggets in this largely conservative, rural town recognised for its beauty, crushing peak-hour (and most hours) access and egress motor vehicle points, with two narrow bridges in the east, and one of the finest ovals for cricket in New Zealand.

The town thrives – a short trip takes you to the international rowing regatta course on Lake Karapiro in the east, to a cycling velodrome in the west, it has some of the best antique and ancient bookshops in the country, is the home town of gifted artists like Wayne Sinclair, a friend of this correspondent.

Most of all, the town seems to have prospered not regressed because of the introduction of the expressway.

With his background in tourism and nurturing businesses in a town for which he and Jo retain an abiding affection – 'we have many friends here,” they say in this interview at 3^rd Place Café overlooking Ohinemutu – Cambridge became aggressive in its promotion of tourism.

Roger resigned the tourism post in August 2018, and this year took to the stump. It was said, in a newspaper tribute last year, Roger 'steered the tourism organisation through some turbulent times”, which must have given him immense satisfaction.

In Shakespearean terms, from those dark hours of 2014, this has become remarkable coup de theatre. The events leading to the termination of his employment were humiliating, to the extent a meeting was called, drawing 100 business folk.

On May 1, the national director of the chamber of commerce Michael Barnett had this to say, tacitly asking why Roger Gordon had landed in an edifying situation: 'In building the Rotorua chamber, Roger has become a mentor and role model to other chamber leaders across the chamber network. His contribution to the chamber brand deserves recognition as does his contribution to the economic development and business development … in the Rotorua district.”

The chamber's apology was announced following news Roger had been dismissed while he was on sick leave, and that he had learned about it through the local newspaper.

Quickly, he found his niche in Cambridge. Though now at an end, he remained on the community board and other community organisations. His influence has been profound.

It includes the reintroduction of 24/7 policing, Keep NZ Beautiful Anzac Armistice Committee, Cambridge Historical Society and Town Concept Plan Steering Group indicates as much diversity and versatility as it does the town's acceptance of him – all within a relatively short span.

Now aged over 70, Roger paid lip service to but did not ignore the usual social media influences to cast his messages.

He took to his scrapers. Delivering hundreds of pamphlets each week, knocking on doors and meeting with those who knew him only through his high profile in Cambridge.

She was hard yakker. Yet, he did not entirely overlook the influence of social media. All played their part. His election night vote was some 250 votes ahead of sixth. He reckons he may have been the only candidate to hoof it around the town whose annual growth is somewhere just over 3 per cent.

And counting. But where will the immigrants find work in a non-industrial town, limited seasonal work, homes at a premium in a town famed for its startlingly successful racehorses?

'Ahh,” says Roger. 'A huge factory is being built which should lead to 700 jobs.”

Roger put elevation not only to his work on a Cambridge community board, but networking with two others who also became councillors.

'We did it together for three years, supported each other in our campaign,” says Roger.

'We knew each other's minds and that we were positive.”

Roger does not seem to harbour lingering bitterness. He remains affable and almost aloof from what was essentially the equivalent of Thomas Becket's murder in Canterbury Cathedral.

Even so, he is first to acknowledge an element of lady luck looked over his shoulder at Cambridge.

'Everyone needs a little luck in their lives,” he says today. 'When I looked at moving to Cambridge and what the work opportunities were, businesses then were starting to have concerns at the expressway: how are we going to manage, what's going to happen to the town? It was a real concern.

'The organisation I finished up working for were made up of some very strong, good business minds.”

Rather than complain, they decided to do something about it, hence a stamp on the tourist map. The position of CEO was advertised. Eventually, Roger operated from an iSite on the fringes of the Cambridge oval.

He applied. But his application was placed on the wrong file, for St Kilda, a retirement home.

'The company rang and asked, ‘why on earth have you applied for that job?' – I said I haven't I've applied for (the other job).”

Once sorted, the board asked him to create a road map to define Cambridge's future once the expressway had opened.

He was hired for three months.

Four years later, in 2018, he left his job - this time, on his own terms.