Ron Pickford has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the General Division for 2024. He was awarded for his significant service to the building design sector and to the community.

He was surprised at receiving the honour, saying his nomination was a mystery but he said it was acknowledgement of those he had worked with and who had supported his work along the way.

"Everything comes down to helping people when there's a need," he said.

Mr Pickford has been a senior building designer, as owner director of Pickford & Associates since 1976. He has a long list of awards and achievements over that time.

In recent years, he was section head and senior lecturer of Federation University's architectural technologies and design.

Notably, Mr Pickford helped design some of Mars Wrigley's buildings, offices and manufacturing facilities and was also involved in design work at McCain factory.

Sometimes he did this in an engineering capacity; other times, mentoring someone through the project.

"A lot of my work was specialist technical work where someone would come up with a design but they didn't know how they could get that to work," he said.

"My job is to get it to stand up and to work."

His work didn't only stay in Australia, but has helped improve outcomes for those in third-world countries too.

Mr Pickford joined the Rotary Club of Ballarat, 40 years ago, which will next year celebrate 100 years.

Thanks to his career expertise, he is a technical advisor for Rotary International, which means he is often assigned projects around the world.

Much of Mr Pickford's work revolves around water sanitation and hygiene for hospitals.

He is used as a technical expert where disease prevention and treatment is needed

Mr Pickford recently completed a project in Ethiopia, pro-bono, where the university hospital of Ghanda and Ethiopia were in desperate need of urgent facilities.

"They had no way of paying for that and there was a civil war that's still going out. A call came out for anyone who would be able to do that," he said.

Mr Pickford paid tribute to his wife Judy, also a Rotarian, who he said had been an enormous support and travel companion for many of his overseas projects.

His final message to the community was to consider volunteering.

"If anyone can join Rotary, I really encourage you to do it."