The news of Sir Angus Tait’s passing will no doubt be greeted with much sadness throughout the New Zealand business community, but especially that of the Canterbury region. Tait was appropriately regarded as the founding father of the local electronics industry with his firm Tait Electronics rising to become an export pioneer and role model for many across the ICT sector. That Canterbury has a thriving technology sector is in large part due to the family of firms that arose from and clustered around Tait.

Even at the age of 88, Sir Angus was still actively involved in the business and was often called upon to speak at industry events, meet with business delegations and sit on various boards. Tait was also passionate about reinvesting into research and development and helped to broker linkages between academia and industry. Few individuals have played such a pivotal stewardship role in the technology industry and he will be sadly missed indeed.