John M Smith BSc (Hons) MSc CITP CEng FIET, April 1947 – December 2021
Published: Mon 24 Jan 2022
It is with great regret that we have to inform members of the death of John M Smith at the age of 74. He is survived by his wife Lizzie and five children.
John became a member of the IET in 1971 and was elected Fellow in 1994. John was known for the implementation of the UK’s first Criminal Information System, for South Yorkshire Police, as well as his early work on the advanced secondary surveillance radar system, ADSEL – now used globally in air traffic control systems.
John went to Slough College to study for an HND, sponsored by Mars, in mechanical engineering which became his lifelong passion.
After a year, John decided that electronic engineering was a preferred topic for study and began a four-year Dip. Tech course at Hatfield Polytechnic, sponsored by Cossor Electronics Limited. The Dip.Tech later became a 1st class honours degree, but John was still uncertain whether electronics was the right field of endeavour for him.
John became a member of a small team, led by engineer Michael C Stevens, which wrote a proposal to the Civil Aviation Authority for an experimental address-selective Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) ground station – then known as ADSEL/DABS.
John was responsible for the outline design, development, project management and tuning of the software over a four-year period. During this project, John also studied to attain another first-class qualification, this time a Master’s degree in Computer Science.
Having finally found out what he wanted to do with his career but, leaving Cossor to join Data Logic in 1979, a firm specialising in telecommunications and network infrastructure.
It would be forty years before John learned, at a Cossor reunion, that the four-year project at Cossor had not been wasted – ADSEL (as SSR Mode S) had been adopted as the gold standard and was now seen as critical to air traffic control systems, giving pinpoint accuracy whereabouts in the sky planes were.
From 1979 to 1982, John project-managed and implemented the UK’s first Criminal Information System, for South Yorkshire Police. He then became a consultant undertaking IT and telecommunications strategy studies, software and hardware platform selection assignments and performance tuning work for a wide range of blue-chip clients in the UK, Europe, the USA and the Far East.
He spent four years with KPMG Management Consulting and a similar time with IBM, during which he wrote guidance used by IBM internationally for risk assessing sales proposals and reviewing projects in delivery.
Later in life, John became a published author and in 2001 he published, Troubled IT Projects: Preventions and turnaround with the IET. A book for buyers and sellers of IT services, project sponsors, stakeholders, project managers, QA professionals and 'troubleshooters' - who want to maximise the success of their projects, their careers and their organisations.
He also wrote the Tower Bridge Operations Manual for Haynes Publishing, which features regularly in Amazon’s Top 10 for Architectural Structures, and featured in a TV programme on the structure of Tower Bridge.
His colleagues from throughout his career said he was a well-respected engineer, who always delivered work to the highest professional standard.
His family are all so proud of him and what he achieved in his lifetime – he will be sadly missed.