At Overseas Emigration Visas we have between us some 50 years' experience of arranging migration and overseas visas. We also have many years of overseas travel and work experience in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA. In fact, almost all of us are drawn from Overseas Emigration Visas' destination countries (Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US), with the rest of us having our roots in the UK and Ireland.
The Overseas Emigration Visas team is comprised of professionally qualified lawyers, attorneys, senior ex-staff members of government immigration departments (Australian immigration and New Zealand immigration) and registered migration agents. This means that Overseas Emigration Visas can field a formidable team to represent you at the highest level and secure your overseas visa.
Equally importantly though, we know the other migration and personal difficulties that you'll face as someone looking to make a new life in a new country. We are all committed to helping you face and come through all of these challenges to secure your brighter future.
We hope the team introductions will give you a feel for the kind of people that we are, our outlooks and our experiences of life.
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Scotland Team
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Registered Migration Agent: 9905168
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Richard, owner and director of Overseas Emigration Visas, shares a surname with the Aussie Rugby half-back and captain but, sadly, has an altogether different physique! Richard comes from New Zealand and has diplomas in Social Work, Police Science and Forensic Accountancy.
The founder of OE, he has spent the last 11 years working in the field and is a leading authority on all migration and overseas visa matters for the New World . Richard regularly participates in radio and TV programmes as well as contributing to press reports on the subject of migration.
Based at our Edinburgh office, Richard is Scotland 's only resident, registered migration agent for MIA and NZAMI (Reg No: 990 5168) for Australia and New Zealand - see MARA, MIA and NZAMI websites. As part of his team he also has registered agents and solicitors for the USA and for Canada who have expertise in US immigration law and Canadian immigration law.
Known throughout the migration world as a great person to do business with, Richard is never short of an ex-client to share a drink or a meal with on his triennial travels to every Australian state capital and every major city in New Zealand and Canada .
Favourite part of the job: Telling clients their business visa has been granted, and telling clients whose original visa application was turned down that their appeal has been successful.
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Scotland Team
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Fiona was born in Cameroon , grew up in Ethiopia and spent her school years in Italy. After taking a degree in Economics and History and an MSc in Tourism she indulged her love of travel by working in the tourism industry for 15 years.
These days she’s a partner in OE visas and deals with the company’s accounts and finances. With two school-age daughters and a busy work schedule travel is now mostly limited to summer holidays in southern France, but she does manage to squeeze in the odd trip to Oz and New Zealand to visit family and carry out some business.
Best part of the job: making clients happy, making the staff happy - and balancing the books!
Favourite destinations: Rome and the French Pyrenees |
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Scotland Team
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Migration Consultant & Delivery Manager
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Gadget guy Laurence, who manages our processing teams, joined OE after training in Avionics with the Royal Air Force and working as a self-employed plumber and electrician. Born in Edinburgh, Laurence has travelled far and wide - everywhere from West Africa to South America - and plans to eventually retire to Southern Europe. In his spare time he enjoys cooking and surfing the Net (he's also a keen Ebayer) when he’s not creating ingenious electronic/electrical devices.
Best part of the job: Travelling and consultations with prospective clients.
Country I'd most like to visit: Japan
Favourite destinations: Rome |
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Scotland Team
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Rosie, who deals with New Zealand skills cases in our busy office, hails from Dunedin, which sounds Scottish but is actually in New Zealand. After getting a BA in Classics and Greek from the University of Otago she came to Scotland to do an MLitt in Ancient History at St Andrews University. She loves the lifestyle and landscapes in Scotland and uses her spare time to see as much of the country as she can.
Best part of the job: helping make our clients’ dreams a reality. It’s also a privilege to deal with people who have the same affection and enthusiasm for New Zealand as I do.
Dream destinations: with my background in studies of ancient societies and artefacts, I want to go to Turkey and Greece. I also plan to see as much of Europe as I can. |
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Scotland Team
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Born in Ayrshire, accounts assistant Yvonne grew up in Aldershot in Hampshire. After completing her education she settled in Southwest Scotland, where she spent 15 years working in catering and retail management before moving to OE. Yvonne is a film buff with a particular fondness for Bette Davis films and horror movies.
Best part of the job: talking to clients on the phone and helping them with their enquiries.
Country I most want to visit: Egypt, especially the pharoah’s tombs.
Favourite destination: Spain.
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Scotland Team
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Pete, our IT Manager, was born in the UK but grew up in North East Victoria in the small town of Porepunkah, at the foot of Mount Buffalo. He studied at La Trobe University in Bendigo and then worked in Melbourne and London before moving to Edinburgh and joining the OE team.
Next destination: Italy - There's so much to see, it's going to take me a while to get around it.
Favourite holiday: Skiing in Zermatt and Alpe D'Huez.
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Scotland Team
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Stevanna comes from Edinburgh and after completing her studies she travelled to Australia for a three-month celebratory trip and fell in love with the country. She spends her spare time practising her driving skills and socialising with friends. She is biding her time until she can return to Australia – and with OE she’s certainly in the right place to organise her next visit.
Best part of the job: sending off a big pile of skills applications at the end of the week.
Where she’d like to travel to next: Travel around Australia.
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Scotland Team
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Born and Bred Scottish Lass, from the Borders. Studied at a University in Edinburgh and gained a degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management. After having tested many jobs in the industry she has decided that OE is the best place to help people achieve their dream and hopefully her own one day. Free-time is spent socializing with friends and family, at the gym or watching ‘cheesy’ films.
Favorite place: ‘Home is where the heart is!’ with my family in France.
Dream destination: OZ, NZ, Caribbean Islands (the list goes on)
Best part of the job: having a positive effect on people’s lives, helping them to achieve their dream!
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Scotland Team
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Helen Isabella comes from down south and has recently moved to the country near Edinburgh. She worked her way up to manager in retail and then decided to change her career to try and help people. Trained as a singer and actress at college she has performed in various shows including one at the London Hippodrome. She designs clothing and accessories, collects horror/thriller films but her main passion is music whether it’s Nina Simone, The Doors, NIN, Foo Fighters or Johnny Cash.
Best part of the job: Letting people know their visas have been granted.
Dream Destinations: Salem MA, Egypt, New Orleans, Utah and Los Angeles
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Scotland Team
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Born and bred in Edinburgh, Douglas studied at the University of Edinburgh where he obtained an MA in Ancient History. He continues to have a keen interest in Greek & Roman history and is a member of a Roman living history society, so if you are lucky you may catch Douglas marching up and down the country in Roman tunic and armour on weekends!
Douglas is also keen on the history and landscape of Scotland and often can be found trekking the highlands and islands of the country. He also enjoys traveling, particularly around the Mediterranean.
Having worked in a variety of roles, Douglas came to OE Visas in the Spring of 2006.
Best part of the job: When a client’s Visa is approved and you know that you have played a role in allowing that person’s dream to come true!
Place you’d most like to visit: Japan
Favourite destination: Italy |
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Scotland Team
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Graham knows a thing or two about living abroad, having been born in South Africa, grown up in Belgium and Zimbabwe now living and studying in Edinburgh (with regular trips to Australia visiting mum and dad on the Sunshine Coast)
As well as being a 2nd year student of English Language and Literature at Edinburgh University, Graham works part-time at OE as editor of the company newsletter. He has a particular interest in journalism writes regularly for Edinburgh University's 'Student' newspaper, and has also had articles recently published in 'The Scotsman'.
When he's not doing all sorts of journalistic things, Graham enjoys travelling and hopes one day to find a destination that he'll stay in long enough to consider 'home' (for the moment, Edinburgh's looking pretty good!)
Favourite destinations: Sydney, Queenstown, Hong Kong
Dream destination: South America, the Carrabean
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Scotland Team
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From Warsaw, Poland, to Scotland, via Melbourne, Maggie is part of the admin team. Maggie is 23 and came to OE after spending a month visiting a friend in Australia.
Maggie wants to study in Edinburgh but in the meantime is focussing on her work, improving her already excellent English and developing her hobby of drawing.
She is a keen photographer, artist and linguist (Maggie can speak English, Polish, German and Latin). Maggie also loves walking and going to the movies, although she admits to being lazy sometimes and preferring to stay at home listening to music.
Best part of the job: Working with the people here - I’ve never met such a good team! We are all working with each other, helping, and what is new for me- everyone is smiling! That really makes your life and at least day- brighter and nicer!
Dream Destination: Caribbean Islands
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Scotland Team
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Maree joined the lodgement team in the Edinburgh after moving to Auld Reekie with a friend from the wee glen of Sallachy in the deep Highlands region of Scotland.
But she is from even further north, having been born on Orkney, an island off the top of Scotland.
Outside of work Maree likes to explore Edinburgh, wandering through the closes and museums on the Royal Mile and getting a bit more exotic at Edinburgh Zoo. One of the most unusual things Maree has done, to us city folk anyway, is spraying numbers on sheep!
Favourite place to visit: Home to see my family and friends
Best part of the job: Learning lots of new stuff!
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Scotland Team
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Zena was obviously always destined for exotic things, having grown up in the tropics of North-East England. She extended this tour of the world's hotspots to Edinburgh last year to take a degree in Zoology.
Her time at OE will provide useful information for her future career as Zena hopes to work for the National Geographic Journal.
Favourite Part of the Job: Helping people realise long-held ambitions , and bantering with the OE staff!
Dream Destination: Palmyra, a tiny island built by growing coral in the middle of the Pacific, where all the world's major currents meet, making it botanically and zoologically diverse (and really hot and pretty...) |
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England and Ireland Team
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Registered Migration Agent: 0214497
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Owen comes from Australia - an "Eastern States Ozzie" - and he has issued immigration visas on behalf of the Australian Government. As an immigration consultant at Overseas Emigration Visas he now applies for visas on behalf of our clients at the Edinburgh migration agency. He is knowledgeable on most aspects of life in his part of the world and is a registered migration agent (MARA registration no 021 4497). He has spent time as a paid beach lifeguard (just like on TV!) and now keeps fit playing water polo in the cooler surroundings of Portobello, near Edinburgh.
Favourite part of the job: Help families realise their dreams of a new life.
Next holiday: Travelling overland from Cairo to Istanbul.
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England and Ireland Team
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Registered Migration Agent: 0635896
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Tony heads up our office in Co. Cork, Ireland. Originally from the Welsh valleys, he travelled to Australia in 1985, joined the Department of Immigration in Perth, Western Australia, and ended up staying for over nine years! He met his Irish wife while he was out in Oz and only recently returned to the Emerald Isle to live.
Tony is particularly expert in Recognition of Prior Learning Applications (RPL) and Competency Demonstration Report Applications for Engineering for Australia. If you're not sure what these are, just give Tony a call. |
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Canada Team
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 Eric Katz |
Katz Consulting Ltd. is led by Eric Bruce Katz, a consultant who has been active for over ten years advising clients on Canadian Immigration matters such as; representations at the Appeal Division (Deportation Appeals, Family Sponsorship Appeals, Alternative Dispute Resolutions) and Immigration Division (detention Reviews, Residency Appeals) of the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), Canada’s largest tribunal; advising other consultants, lawyers and law firms and human resource professionals on business immigration issues including the main business categories for individuals such as self employed business persons, entrepreneurs and investors, as well as individual professional skilled workers seeking permanent residence to Canada.
Eric has spoken at several immigration conferences and seminars both domestically in Canada and internationally in Europe and Mexico. He is a Vice President of the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants, Ontario Chapter (CAPIC) for 2005, the Canadian immigration consulting industry’s educational and lobbying organization. Eric is a member of the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants (CSIC) and has been a past member of its Finance Committee and Legal Services Committee. CSIC is Canada’s immigration consulting self regulatory body.
Memberships include the Canadian Society of Immigration Consultants, the Canadian Association of Professional Immigration Consultants (Ontario Vice President), the Law Society of Alberta (Active Non-Practising Member), The Canadian Bar Association, Alberta and Ontario Sections, and the International Bar Association, Section on General Practice (Immigration and Nationality Committee 14), and a member of Gerson Lehrman Group’s Law Council (New York and Washington, D.C.).
Eric holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto (Victoria College Class of 1987) in Toronto, and an LL.B with Honours from The University of London (University College London : Class of 1992) in London, England.
In addition to the practice of advising on Canadian immigration matters, Eric is in constant contact with real property brokers, international tax accountants and tax lawyers for the benefit of his international clientele.
Eric lives in Toronto and enjoys cycling and skiing.
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Canada Team
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 Paul Hiltemann |
Married & with three daughters, Paul was born in the Netherlands. His family immigrated to Canada in 1953 when he was three years old. He has a BA in Social Sciences, University of Toronto in 1972 and further degrees:- MA in Political Science Schiller College (Paris, Berlin) and an MBA from IMEDE (Lausanne).
Paul, in his working life, has been a corporate pensions officer in Toronto, lecturer of European history in Holland, also employed as a designated immigration officer by the Canadian Embassy in The Hague, Holland from 1986 to 1993. He has been an immigration consultant since then, currently based near The Hague.
Paul helps process OE Visas’ skilled and business applications for immigration to Canada.
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Meet the Team 
