Rod (J. Roderick) Coutts is a Canadian entrepreneur and a co-founder of

Teklogix Teklogix International Inc., or Teklogix, was a tech company founded in 1967 by engineers working at Ferranti-Packard. The company focused on mini computer applications. It designed and built complete systems based upon DEC's PDP-8 computer, DEC's ...

International. He was born in Cookstown, Ontario. Coutts graduated from

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality ...

in 1964 with a Bachelor of Applied Science Degree in Electrical Engineering.
In 2000, Coutts donated an estimated $7 million in shares to the University of Waterloo, as his tribute to the school.

"My family has had a lot of good fortune over the years and the University of Waterloo had a lot to do with that," says Coutts. "This is my chance to give something back."

In return for his generosity, the University has named a building after him: J.R. Coutts Engineering Lecture Hall (commonly referred to as Rod Coutts Hall, or RCH). Since then, Coutts has continued supporting the university by funding bursaries and scholarships. In 2007, Rod Coutts received his Doctor of Engineering (D.Eng.'07).

Teklogix

Coutts was the founder of Teklogix International with four other young entrepreneurs: Lawrie Cragg, Al Vanderburgh, Cliff Bernard and Pete Halsall. The company focused on providing mobile workers with

wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...

data transmission and real-time data management within the

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

industry. Teklogix became

Psion Teklogix Psion Teklogix Inc. was the operational business of Psion (computers), Psion. Psion Teklogix is a global provider of solutions for mobile computing and wireless data collection. Psion Teklogix' products and services include rugged mobile hardw ...

in the year 2000, after it was purchased for $544 million (Cdn.) by U.K.-based Psion, started by David Potter. Coutts met the other Teklogix founders while working at

Ferranti Ferranti or Ferranti International plc was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The firm was known ...

International's Canadian division,

Ferranti-Packard Ferranti-Packard Ltd. was the Canadian division of Ferranti's global manufacturing empire, formed by the 1958 merger of Ferranti Electric and Packard Electric. For several years in the post-war era, the company underwent a dramatic expansion and ...

Electronics. Ferranti-Packard was known for projects related to FP6000 (

Ferranti-Packard 6000 The FP-6000Ferranti Packard: Pioneers in Canadian Electrical Manufacturing Norman R Ball, John N Vardalas was a second-generation Mainframe computer, mainframe computer developed and built by Ferranti-Packard, the Canadian division of Ferranti, ...

, which became the

ICL 1900 ICT 1900 was a family of mainframe computers released by International Computers and Tabulators (ICT) and later International Computers Limited (ICL) during the 1960s and 1970s. The 1900 series was notable for being one of the few non-American ...

ReserVec ReserVec was a computerized reservation system developed by Ferranti Canada for Trans-Canada Airlines (TCA, today's Air Canada) in the late 1950s. It appears to be the first such system ever developed, predating the more famous SABRE system in ...

, Back Up Interceptor Control (BUIC) for the United States Military, as well as Ferranti-Packard's

drum memory Drum memory was a magnetic data storage device invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria. Drums were widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as computer memory. For many early computers, drum memory formed the main working memory ...

systems. He worked closely on drum memory associated with the early warning radar system for North America. Coutts and the rest of the founding group left Ferranti-Packard and formed Teklogix in 1967.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coutts, Rod Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Canadian electrical engineers Ferranti Living people

Teklogix

See also

References