Roger was born in Sydney in 1955. Naturally intelligent and gifted, he scored in the top one percent of students in the 1973 Higher School Certificate. After a year studying medicine at UNSW, he switched to his true passion, the Arts, and graduated in 1979 from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor's degree, majoring in fine arts, history and the philosophy of science, and English.

Roger’s other great love was the environment, and he was an early member of the Colong Committee, which successfully campaigned to create Wollemi National Park.

After university, Roger worked in Sydney as a freelance journalist, contributing to newspapers such as The Australian, the Australian Financial Review, and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Given his environmental passion and the emerging threat of a dam on the pristine Franklin River in Tasmania, Roger moved to Canberra in 1982 to work as a lobbyist for the Australian Conservation Foundation. He played a key role in the Franklin River campaign until the successful High Court decision in 1983 blocked the dam. Roger later wrote about the campaign in Battle for the Franklin (Fontana, 1984).

From 1984, Roger returned to journalism. He worked as a staff journalist for The Canberra Times, covering health, science, and the environment. Later, he worked as a journalist for the ANU University Publications, mainly in science.

In 1988, Roger branched out on his own. He founded Green Words & Images, a Canberra-based publishing service, and Green Words Training, a service providing training in computer use, writing, and publishing. His clients included government agencies, national associations, universities, and companies. The business operated until 2001, employing around 20 staff. Following the end of the Green Words era, Roger wrote another book, this time about small businesses, titled Good Business, Bad Business (Wrightbooks, 2002).

It was sometime in 2002 that Roger’s health took a devastating turn due to a fungal brain infection. At the time, he and his young family were living on a rural property in Sutton, just outside Canberra. The local council had required the removal of a gum tree near the house’s septic system. While using a chainsaw to fell the tree, Roger was unknowingly exposed to a fungus growing on it. In 2004, under dramatic circumstances, he was admitted to the emergency ward at Canberra Hospital, showing severe signs of meningitis. Neurosurgeons saved his life, and infectious disease specialists eventually identified the rare cause—a cryptococcus fungus.

After months of recovery and rehabilitation in hospital, Roger returned home and took on work as a marketing manager with Australian Ethical Investment.

However, in 2006, he suffered a relapse of the infection. Following another hospital stay and period of rehabilitation, he returned home. As he was no longer able to drive and faced impairments to his mobility and vision, the family relocated back to Canberra. Roger became a full-time parent and managed the household. He also focused on poetry and philosophy -- writing poetry and attending poetry readings at the ANU, and writing a philosophical guide to life for his two sons. He completed a manuscript entitled The Bad Life, Beauty 1, Fear 0 before his health deteriorated further.

In December 2015, Roger entered a nursing home, where he remained for nearly nine years. He passed away just short of his 69th birthday in December 2024.

In 2025 Roger’s family established the inaugural Finding Beauty Poetry Prize in his memory to support emerging poets across the ACT region.