Obituary: Geoffrey Page

Dr Geoffrey Page, CEO of Manukau Institute of Technology. Died aged 63.

In 1992 the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) was disbanded and nine Crown Research Institutes formed, which were charged with paying their own way.

Dr Geoff Page was appointed to lead the new Industrial Research Ltd.

The institutes were told to conduct research for the benefit of New Zealand, pursue excellence and social responsibility, and ensure financial viability.

With Dr Page at the helm, IRL became a global technology company. Projects included working with the US National Cancer Research Institute to develop a range of compounds to help combat cancer.

Another involved work on new materials which conduct electricity without any resistance at very low temperatures. These were sold to an American company in Boston.

A 25-strong team based in Auckland led the world in the early 90s in designing robots to handle animals and other "variable raw materials".

In the year to June 2001, IRL earned $8.5 million in commercial revenue from local clients and $14.6 million from overseas, as well as $32.6 million from Government research contracts.

A Government plan in 2001 to ask the CRIs for a special dividend ran into opposition from some institutes, but not from IRL. Dr Page felt that as the institutes' owner, the Government was "absolutely entitled to take money out of any organisation that [it] funds".

Geoffrey Page, born in London, was educated in Surrey, and gained degrees at the Maidstone and Medway College of Science and Technology and at the Imperial College in London, graduating with a PhD in 1970.

He moved with his family to New Zealand in 1985, where he lectured in food technology at Massey University in Palmerston North before taking up a position at the nearby Dairy Research Institute.

He sat on many science and technology boards over the next 20 years, including a ministerial science task group in 1991, and the Food Technology Research Centre at Massey from 1988 to 1993.

In 2001 Dr Page resigned from IRL to take up a position at the Australian National University in Canberra as head of the university's commercial arm. But a proposed increase in the size and direction of the Manukau Institute of Technology in south Auckland presented a challenge Page could not resist, and he returned to New Zealand in 2004 to oversee the new developments.

Ill health forced his resignation last week, and he died two days later.

Dr Page is survived by his wife, Ann, daughters Sarah and Rachel, and four grandchildren.