[1] Kitchenn became heavily involved in community groups, was a significant force in Rostrum and worked on international standards for telecommunications.

While still in London he was asked to work at Australia House to devise and administer tests and interviews to recruit technician and cable-jointer staff.

He was a senior professional engineer in the PMG's Department, continuing in it after it became a quasi government organisation name Telecom Australia.

Doug Brooke, formerly Supervising Engineer, Transmission & Line Planning, Telecom Australia in the 1970s, wrote: "Ron was in charge of one of the three divisions, with the responsibility for the formulation of operational parameters for telephonic speech transmission to ensure that end-to-end telephone communication meets intelligibility and grade of service standards irrespective of whether it is a local, national or international call.

[2] Kitchenn was an organiser and participant in the first international seminar on national transmission planning for the ITU, held in Melbourne in 1970.

He was also a CCITT Special Rapporteur for studies on transmission characteristics of circuits in the switched international network and on stability and echo.

Upon becoming secretary of the Postal Electrical Society of Victoria in 1958 it became apparent that the Telecommunications Journal of Australia, although of national standing, was in decline and had no formal ties to other states.

A technically accurate poem THE LOSS ACROSS A HYBRID was written by Kitchenn and published in the Telecommunications Journal of Australia in 1977 and repeated in 2011.

Kitchenn was a member of Superannuated Commonwealth Officers Association (SCOA), Victorian Division, and retired from the secretary's position in 2008,[8] After retirement Kitchenn joined the Greensborough CAB, completed the 3-day training course and started staffing the drop-in centre half a day a week; he was quickly recruited to board of management.

[10] He also participated as a member of State Executive (Zone Council) over many years and was responsible for the creation of the Rostrum Office Bearers’ Manual .