Gareth was the last GOC chair I served under as appointed councillor. He took time to understand what made each of us tick and was a perfect choice for leader. His predecessor Anna Bradley had stepped into the role from lay council member jut a few years earlier and just after the professional position moved from being an elected role to an appointed one. Anna had steadied the ship after a rocky time under the iast previous chair and CEO, both of whom resigned. I say this because Gareth essentially inherited a new exec team and a slimmed council. He immediately set to work to consolidate the strengths of the organisation with a diligent sense of priorities. On the horizon was further government fiddling in health regulation via the Law Commission. This could have occupied a lot of time that could have bene used productively elsewhere. Gareth was instrumental in keeping the GOC focused on its core role in public protection. 
On this basis the most important aspect was accelerating the Educational Strategic Review which was about to be delayed into a future business plan. he insisted it be brought forward and not a moment too soon. Not everything in the ESR was easy, lots of vested interests but Gareth steered this and rescued it from misdirection and this has led to almost every optometry school (of which there are too many) establishing new courses to better reflect the new breed of modern clinician. That this was done professionally and without domination by any one body (or corporate business) was entirely down to Gareth establishing the terms of reference. 
After I left we spoke regularly and in particular over the detail of the vision for optometry and optics that belied his lay background and was in many respects more visionary than the professional bodies in optics themselves. I would say the ground rules for optometry prescribing being autonomous and maturing out of medical control was down to his foresight.

I will miss his humour, his insight and his widely shared experience. Funny I was on holiday at the tip of South America when i met a former colleague of Gareths from the civil service ! it was nice to share memories and mutual respect.

Vale Gareth