Kevin Burgess - local philanthropist, community man and his vision for Cambridge
When Kevin Burgess arrived in Cambridge in 1981, he came looking for a place to plant himself, to contribute, and to belong. What Cambridge gave him back exceeded anything he might have hoped for.
“I fell in love with the Cambridge community,” he says, without a trace of hesitation. “It’s got to be one of the coolest places in New Zealand.”
Together with his wife Jane, Kevin devoted 42 years to the pharmacy profession in Cambridge, steadily building a career and business that eventually expanded to owning three local pharmacies. In 2023, the couple retired after selling their Cambridge businesses, marking the end of a remarkable chapter of service to the community.
More than four decades on, he has become one of Cambridge’s most prominent champions, a connector, a builder, and a giver. He’s someone whose fingerprints are on community life in ways both visible and quietly invisible. That contribution was formally recognised when he was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2025 New Year’s Honours, for services to governance, community and sport.
In his genes
Three broad threads run through Kevin’s contribution to Cambridge. In sport, he laced up his boots for Hautapu Rugby Club in his early years, has supported athletes at four Olympic Games and multiple All Black tours, co-founded the Perago Sports Trust and the Adastra Foundation to back aspiring young athletes, and spent 15 years involved with the Waipā and Waikato Secondary Sports Awards.
In governance, he has served as a Grassroots Trust trustee for 20 years, a Cambridge Resthaven Trust trustee since 2016, and was instrumental in establishing the Cambridge Information Centre and the Cambridge Retailers Association, and he won the Leader of the Year Award at the 2018 Waipā Business Awards along the way. And in the community, he has given generously and continuously, guided since his earliest years by the example of his grandmother,
Mary Burgess, who dedicated her life to helping those in need.
Giving back, he’ll tell you, is simply in his genes. His philosophy is rooted in something so simple: when you put a little bit in, you get a lot out.
Inspiration and a vision for the future
Part of what shaped Kevin’s approach to public life was the influence of a great friend, the late Alan Livingston, former Waipā mayor, Waikato Regional Council chair and QEII National Trust Board of Directors chair, who passed away in April 2026 after a distinguished career in local governance. Kevin found in Alan a model of leadership he deeply admired: steady, principled, and fundamentally people-focused.
“He was an inspiration to me from the outset,” Kevin says. “A statesman, a gentleman, never ruffled, always polite. A mentor to many and I always appreciated his advice. He was interested in people, which meant he really cared. He was so well respected.”
Kevin’s vision for Cambridge’s future is, by his own description, a bullish one. He wants to see new blood and new families arrive, drawn by what this town offers. He wants a melting pot of diversity, an egalitarian Cambridge where people from all walks of life feel they belong. He’s not precious about growth; he welcomes it, because he believes a bigger Cambridge, done well, is a better Cambridge.
Cambridge Community Fund
Now, he’s channelling that conviction into his most ambitious act of community investment yet. Together with Cambridge businessman David Cooney and Momentum Waikato, Kevin has established the Cambridge Community Fund, a permanent philanthropic endowment designed to grow charitable giving in the town for generations to come.
The Fund is built on the principle that Cambridge’s prosperity should be shared, and that a thriving town needs structural support for those within it. It’s the kind of long-view thinking that characterises everything Kevin does: not just responding to today’s needs but building something that outlasts any individual effort.
More on the fund: momentumwaikato.nz/cambridgecommunityfund
