At nineteen years old, young Sia defied his father’s wishes and began a job which he had wanted since elementary school. When Sia was 10 years old, Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas was already hiring Dayaks (natives of Borneo) for her Orangutan Research and Conservation Project in his home village of Pasir Panjang. Dr. Galdikas was Louis Leakey’s third primatologist protégée, following the footsteps of Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey in studying wild great apes.