Electronics company pioneer Sir Angus Tait dies at 88

By NZPA

Tuesday 7th August 2007

Sir Angus Tait, founder of Christchurch radio communications company Tait Electronics, died today, aged 88, the company said.

He died at Windermere Lifestyle Care and Village. Chairman of the company that employs 850 staff, Tait still went to work regularly before his death.

Michael Chick, managing director, said the country, company and worldwide radio industry was poorer for his death.

"He was an immensely determined yet compassionate man, a great innovator and mentor for so many," Chick said.

Tait was often an outspoken critic of government policies, particularly the level playing field and open market policies begun in the 1980s by former finance minister Sir Roger Douglas.

He refused many offers by foreigners to buy his company, which exports 90% of its production, and which he protected in 1994 from takeover by donating his shares to a charitable trust.

"As a result, many jobs were saved and the company has gone on to earn over two billion dollars in exports for New Zealand," Chick said.

The Tait Foundation has since donated millions of dollars mostly to educational causes, most recently in the Canterbury University's Wireless Research Centre.

He started life needing to be independent when his father died during an influenza epidemic before he was born.

He first flirted with electronics as a teen at Waitaki Boys High School in Oamaru where he skipped homework in favour of tinkering with electronics. He left school without formal qualifications when he landed a job at a local radio shop at 17.

He got into the mobile communications business, beginning in a potato warehouse, having learnt much about radio technology while serving for six years in a radar section of the Royal New Zealand Air Force in Britain.

In 1948 he formed his first company, A M Tait Ltd on the back of mobile radio sales to two taxi companies. Without any sort of business plan, the company's staff swelled to 100 people by the mid-1960s, when A M Tait Ltd even delved into making televisions.

"Technology was king back then," he told a conference five years ago. "I figured if I got that bit right, everything else would just fall into place."

He believed in the adage that if at first you don't succeed, try again.

His business "went bust" in 1967 when the Bank of New Zealand pulled the plug 15 years after its foundation. He was forced to work under a receiver for a year, but said it was "a very valuable 12 months".

"Failure is a common event," he told the conference. "It's a human thing... and part of the business of living."

On his 50th birthday, he took out a second mortgage on his house, rebuilt the business and repaid his debts.

While it wasn't all plain sailing, Tait said he had some lucky breaks.

"It was the right place, right time, and we had the right technology."

After receivership, Tait Electronics rebuilt by becoming the first company in Australasia to build the all-transistor mobile radio.

During the 1970s the Tait Miniphone boosted the company's sales and took Tait to the top of the New Zealand market and from there the company began exporting to Britain and other countries. In 1994, Tait won the Governor-General's Supreme Award for Exporter of the Year award for the second time.

In 1996, he was made an honorary doctorate of engineering by Canterbury University and he was knighted in 1999.

A survivor of the Waihine sinking, he decided at 75 to put his shares in Tait into a trust following the example of German industrial Robert Bosch.

Always a radio enthusiast (call sign ZL 3NL), Tait kept up to date with the latest technologies.

Until the end at 88, Tait drove into work in his characteristic red Alpha Romeo. Rather than a parking space, he pretty much parked right by the front door. After all, it was his name on the office sign.

He is survived by his wife Hazel, three children and a grandchild.

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