By Jody Record, Media Relations

The first thing William Conk says about his role as newly-elected U.S. vice president of Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is that it makes him uncomfortable to have it bring him into the spot light.

That pretty much sums up the way Conk, director of Housing here at UNH, has gone about the business of giving his time to the humanitarian group internally known as “Medecins Sans Frontieres” that he’s been connected with for more than a decade.

“I had always wanted to do work overseas, particularly in relief,” says Conk, who connected with the group two years before he was accepted. “Wanting to do good isn’t a skill. It isn’t something that will get you in the field.”

Fortunately for Conk, who came to UNH almost 30 years ago, he’s got skills.

In the past, he had helped an aunt in Puerto Rico design a water system. He’d traveled extensively throughout the world. And, although Medecins Sans Frontieres didn’t look at it as medical experience, Conk had been an EMT with the Durham Ambulance Corps for 12 years.

In 1994, he took a seven-month leave from the university and went to warring Bosnia where, in addition to doctors, there was a need for logistical officers, lab technicians, water and sanitation experts and other non-medical professionals.

Conk served as a logistical officer and also delivered medical supplies to war hospitals on the front lines and to clinics throughout the country.

“Bosnia had a pretty sophisticated healthcare system before the war bit because of the war, they couldn’t get supplies in,” Conk says.

After returning to UNH, he stayed involved with MSF on a domestic basis, through speaking engagements and helping to develop personal support for volunteers back from the field.

His next assignment, a six-week stint, was in Albania, working with Kosovo refugees. He did everything from designing water supplies to setting up housing to hiring translators.

Albania had been through a boom and there were abandoned warehouses all around the country that became shelters for the displaced people.

“We’d go out for a walk and find a warehouse we didn’t even know was there,” Conk says.

Since 2004, Conk has been out in the field twice, spending two weeks in Zambia working on an ongoing HIV-AIDS project and then, on a second trip, to the Ukraine and Russia, he reviewed programs and met with volunteers.

Doctors without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières has sections in 19 countries with five operational divisions: France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Spain. During the 1990s, the decision was made to form an association made up of current or former field staff and elect a board of directors from the association. The board has four officer positions.

In 2003, Conk was elected to the MSF-USA board of directors. He also serves on the board of directors for MSF/Holland. Last month, he was elected vice president of MSF-USA.

“It’s very time consuming. Basically, I live in two worlds: the world of MSF and the world of UNH. My nights are spent on MSF,” Conk says.

And he is equally passionate about both.

“I really like UNH; I really like the work I do here,” Conk says of the place he came to in 1977 thinking he’d stay three years. “The two worlds are central to my life but they don’t mix.”

He talks about the contrasts between the UNH community and the countries torn apart by war, famine, natural or man-made disasters. Those stark differences are one reason he keeps his two worlds separate.

“It’s always been important to me not to mix them because the students coming here are paying good money to get a good education and a have a decent living environment and I have no right for them to expect less,” Conk says. “That’s this world. There are many worlds.”