After spending some time as a teacher in secondary schools, he returned to Sydney to complete his PhD and take up a position as Professor of Geography and Urban Planning.
Although Logan knew little about Monash at the time, he wanted to return to Australia and chose the university because it seemed "the liveliest and brightest place".
Prompted by the Dawkins reforms, Logan aggressively pursued Monash's takeover of a number of tertiary institutions.
Through Logan's close personal relationships with members of the Hawke and Keating governments, he was able to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to develop the new campuses.
In that year's Australia Day Honours List he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC), the highest honour which can be awarded to an Australian citizen, "for service to education, business and the arts, particularly through raising international awareness of Australian higher education services, and for promoting cooperation between countries".