Nils Foss (11 May 1928 – 16 May 2018) was a Danish civil engineer and business executive. He was the founder of Foss A/S, a Danish family owned company, established in 1956. The Nils Foss Excellence Prize is named after him.

Early life and education

Foss was born into a family of well-known civil engineers in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

. His paternal grandfather, Alexander Foss, had been a co-owner and central figure in FLSmidth from 1887. Foss attended Gentofte Statsskole and graduated as a civil engineer from the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fi ...

in 1952.

Career

After his graduation, Foss was initially employed at Torben Søderberg in Denmark as Sales engineer. Thereafter he went to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

where he worked for Tracerlab Inc in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

and Donner Scientific Co. in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. After his return to Denmark, in 1956, he founded FOSS Electric A/S (now FOSS Analytical A/S), with his father Erling Foss. He was CEO of FOSS until 1968, where after he was CEO of the Danish company F.L. Smidth from 1969–1976. In 1981 he returned to FOSS as CEO and in 1990 he passed the reins to his son Peter Foss. For a period of time he was active in the Board of the Danish Conservative Party, during which time he was a strong supporter of Danish membership of the European Union. During 1989–1996 Nils Foss was Chairman of the Danish charity Dansk Flygtningehjælp. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of the Danish American Business Forum (DABF) from 1997–2002; and Danish-Chinese Business Forum (DCBF) where he held the position of Chairman from 2006–2012.Hvor der handles – kapitler af mit erhvervsliv, Gyldendal, 1977

Personal life

Foss was married to the artist Dorthe Foss. They had three children, the sons Peter and Nils Christian Foss and the daughter Pernille Foss. All three children are board members of Foss Analytics. Foss was active in the Conservative People's Party. He was chairman of Dansk Flygtningehjælp from 1989 to 1996.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Foss, Nils 1928 births 2018 deaths Danish civil engineers Danish company founders Businesspeople from Copenhagen People from Frederiksberg Technical University of Denmark alumni Deaths from Parkinson's disease Neurological disease deaths in Denmark