At the 77th World Congress in Vienna he was elected as a UEA board member, and in 1994 he accepted the position of secretary-general after the resignation of British Esperantist Ian Jackson.

He was re-elected as secretary-general the following year, but in 1996 he resigned that post in favour of Italian Esperantist Michela Lipari, although he remained a board member until 1998.

In 1992 he became an editor of the Esperanto magazine Monato, with a column La monda vilaĝo ("The global village"),[1] a position he held till 1995.

In 2000 he and his family moved to Vancouver; after a year as a postdoctoral researcher at Simon Fraser University, he became an assistant professor in the education faculty, where he still works.

In 2010, along with a colleague, he shared a second $1 million research grant to develop an environmental public elementary school in the neighbouring city of Maple Ridge.