LOSSES TO OUR‘ FAMILY’
Since the first issue of INMR( then called Insulator News & Market Report) back in September of 1993, the years have seen the passing of people who played a role in INMR’ s growth and development. These individuals came from different backgrounds and places but all shared a strong interest – perhaps even passion – for insulators that drew them to INMR and us to them. Now, with this our 100 th issue, we wish to pay tribute to them and to acknowledge their lasting contribution to our field and to the power supply industry in general.
M Zimmerman
Glenn Kellett
Glenn Kellett passed away in late 2001. As founder of K-Line Insulators in the early 1980s and before that a company specializing in overhead lines, he was not just an entrepreneur but in many respects an insulator pioneer. With his expert knowledge of maintenance, he saw the opportunity to adapt the then still nascent composite insulator technology into more functional designs that met changing needs in the Canadian utility industry and later among customers worldwide.
I was introduced to Glenn in 1993, when INMR published the first of several articles about his firm. He was warm-hearted, modest in his accomplishments, generous with his smile and deeply devoted to the business he had brought onto the world stage.
Claude de Tourreil
Claude de Tourreil, who died in early 2006, was among the insulator industry’ s most beloved – even if occasionally crusty – personalities. I have often commented on how we first met, in 1990, when he was already one of the most recognized experts on composite insulators, working at Hydro-Québec’ s IREQ research facility and I – at least as far as insulators were concerned – was pretty much nothing.
Yet Claude was still willing and patient enough to share from his deep fount of knowledge. In so doing, he helped usher me into this industry as both a mentor and later also as a colleague who accompanied
me on site visits within France, Morocco and Spain. He also opened my eyes to the possibilities arising from new technologies that made me pay particular attention to the growing application of composite insulators during the early years of INMR.
Claude was a tireless worker who volunteered generously from his personal time to head and sit on industry working groups. But he was also a gadfly who was not afraid to take on anyone – not even the IEC – for what he regarded as too much bureaucracy delaying the publishing of much needed new standards.
Claude was a longtime contributor to INMR with his wonderful and provocative columns and also attended our WORLD CONGRESSES as a speaker, starting in 1997 and up until the event in Hong Kong in late 2005, only months before his death.
The evolution of technology in any field is often influenced by a few extraordinary people who are not only visionaries but who are also willing to devote their lives to selflessly advance the science. Claude was such a person, donating generously from his vast knowledge with little regard for whatever fame might come with it.
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