Brigadier Patrick Martin Blagden CBE (15 March 1935 – 17 December 2020) was a British Army officer and was the United Nations' foremost expert on de-mining at UNMAS.
[2][3] In May 1988 he joined the engineering staff of Royal Ordnance plc, part of British Aerospace.
In July 1992 he was appointed Project Manager of a Royal Ordnance weapons system, but in August 1992 he was recruited by the UN to set up their mine clearance office, which later became UNMAS.
He ran the UN de-mining office until August 1995, when he left to become a freelance consultant for the World Bank, the ICRC, the EU (including assistance to the JRC and the writing of contracts for clearance of a minefield in Zimbabwe), and a number of other agencies including the Japanese and Swiss Governments.
[4] In September 1998 he was invited by the Swiss government to assist in the formation of the GICHD, and then to act as its Technical Director, a post he continued to hold until 2011, when he retired to become a local Conservative councillor.