For almost two decades, Orkney MSP Liam McArthur has been quietly focussed on addressing local concerns on the islands he represents rather than seeking a national profile.
But now he has been placed firmly in the spotlight by his stewardship of the assisted dying bill, which this week passed its first hurdle in the Scottish Parliament.
MSPs had voted against two previous attempts to change the law in 2010 and 2015.
McArthur had voted in favour of both those bills before deciding to have a go himself at making it legal for terminally ill adults to seek medical help to end their lives.
He is probably one of the best placed politicians to champion such an emotive cause.
Not because he has family experience of a particularly traumatic end of life situation – he has said he does not.
Instead, it is because of his personality and approach to politics.
McArthur is a very understated MSP.
He doesn't tend to flap or get furious and he has worked hard to build friendly working relationships with politicians in all parties.
He has won praise from the first minister down for the way he has conducted himself in discussions over assisted dying – respecting all opinions and listening to suggestions for how his proposals could be improved.
That has helped him build support beyond his own expectations.
He repeatedly said the vote on his bill was likely to be tight. When it came, he won by 70 votes to 56 with one abstention – a larger margin of victory than his team had anticipated.
Not that his response was in any way triumphalist.
Instead, he was tearful – and relieved to know that his years of meticulous work resulted in a vote in principle for assisted dying.
McArthur has succeeded where previous sponsors of assisted dying proposals in ther Scottish Parliament – Jeremy Purvis and then Patrick Harvie, on behalf of the late Margo MacDonald – failed to win sufficient support.
He decided to build on their legacy after being re-elected in 2021, making the judgement that the mood of parliament had changed with its new membership.
He was right.
That shift in opinion may reflect the normalisation of so-called "right to die" provisions by their introduction in other countries, and possibly the wider discussions about death prompted by the pandemic.
A separate proposal on assisted dying for England and Wales is working its way through the UK parliament.
