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From missiles to ecotourism - six different careers underpinned by agnostic mathematics!
(Only the time scale changes, from seconds, to minutes, to hours, to years)
Twelve years at the CSIR where I completed my PhD, including two years at the University of California Berkely. This was in pursuit, so to speak, of air-to-air missile design. This overlapped with Duncan's time there and his run in with the Security Police resonated with mine! (If they had known about my Berkely exploits, I would definitely have been "Nie Goedgekeur"!)
Sixteen years as Managing Director of a high-tech engineering company supplying in-house developed advanced control systems to processing plants in South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Scotland and Canada. A notable feature of the company was that less than 50% of the engineering staff were white males. The rest were from the full rich spectrum of talent in the country. We had fun and have some amazing tales to tell.
Two years as Chief Director at the Department of Trade and Industry in charge of the R100m pa national Cluster Programme. This was in 1996-97, an exciting and dynamic time in Government. But a steep learning curve in more ways than one. For one of them see: Fraud and Trust: Two Sides of the Coin
Three years consulting to the World Bank, including head of the Economic Development Team of the Maloti-Drakensberg Trans-frontier Project. Being paid to fly the length of the Drakensberg by helicopter was really hard work! This drew on similar 'agnostic mathematics' to model ecotourism development - and my 40 years of climbing in the 'Berg.
Tony & Sally
Career no. 5: (by ChatGPT!)
Dr. Tony Heher served as Director of UCT Innovation from 2000-2005, emphasising the strategic timing and planning of invention disclosures and patents within universities.
He was instrumental in promoting university-industry collaborations, positioning research for social as well as commercial benefit, and served as the founding president of the South African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA) in 2001. He helped shape the national landscape of research and innovation management in higher education. His work spanned intellectual property management, higher education policy and innovation ecosystems in South Africa.
Based on his experience in mathematical modelling, he developed a generic model of the intellectual property value chain that explained why it typically took 10 years from research idea to commercial income, with a very high variability. This model was well received internationally and he was asked to present it at conferences in Brazil, India, Oxford, and Bellagio and Trieste in Italy.
He started at UCT at the request of a pro-innovation Deputy Vice Chancellor (DVC), but five DVCs later, the cycle had turned, to one to whom university administrators were not supposed to perform research, so he was rather unceremoniously sent on his way by the new 'innovation antagonistic' DVC!
A wry note: I related to Duncan's and JP's stories of UCT as I was there at the same time.
Career no. 6:
The hardest career was yet to come. We had lived with a handicapped child (brain damaged by tick-bite fever when he was two) for 30 years. As we were much older parents (43 when he was born), it was essential we place him in a safe place to live after we passed on. But after being expelled from twelve different homes in 27 years, we realised we needed to take the future into our hands. Raising R12m from a generous donor, seemed to provide the answer: build a home to house him according to his needs - and many other young adults with similar needs.
If raising money is hard, spending it is even harder. Three years of extensive negotiation followed, including many one-on-one meetings with Helen Zille, then Premier of the Western Cape. But we finally got there and built not only a home for our son Ralph, but for 40 other young adults. A dream fulfilled - or so we thought - as it only lasted four years, when he was expelled yet again, and again and again. The last, in the middle of COVID, was more than he could handle, and he passed away in April 2020 from a broken heart and a major epileptic seizure.
After much introspection, and help from JP, I wrote up a paper about his life and the profound implications for our society. See "My Other Life" for details.
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