2006 Fredericton Encaenia - Ceremony C
Masry, Salem
Doctor of Science (D.Sc.)
Orator: Mason, Gordon
Citation:
ENCAENIA, CEREMONY C, MAY 2006
SALEM MASRY
to be Doctor of Science
Salem Masry, or Sam as he is known to nearly everyone, began his association with the University of New Brunswick exactly 40 years ago when he became a post-doctoral fellow in surveying engineering.
A native of Egypt, Dr. Masry had just completed a PhD in photogrammetry at the University of London in England and recognized that UNB Fredericton's six-year-old surveying engineering program, already one of the best in the world, was worth being associated with. But it was Dr. Masry himself, first as a post-doc, then a research associate and finally rising through the ranks as a professor, who was to put UNB on the map, so to speak.
In the late 1960s, the field of mapping was rapidly evolving from using aerial photographs to satellite images to digital and computer technology. Dr. Masry's academic career was on the leading edge of this curve. He developed new methodologies, earned a patent, and introduced the discipline of digital mapping to UNB, all in the first eight years of his tenure here. He went on to create North America's first advanced university digital mapping laboratory, install the first digital mapping systems at the Land Registry Information Service of New Brunswick and, most important, to incorporate a company called Universal Systems Limited in 1979.
Universal Systems, of which Dr. Masry has been president and CEO for the past 27 years, was to become one of UNB'S and New Brunswick's greatest entrepreneurial success stories. Working in collaboration with his colleagues at UNB, Dr. Masry developed a unique Computer Aided Resource Information System or CARIS, one of the world's fist computerized mapping systems. Universal Systems was created to market this software all over the world.
Despite a distinguished teaching and research record, by 1986 Universal Systems and CARIS had grown large enough and busy enough that Dr. Masy left his position at UNB to focus all of his energies on the development of the company and its products. Headquartered in Fredericton, the company began international sales in 1987, and established offices first in Europe and then the United States. Various versions of CARIS were developed, expanding and improving the applications and usability of the software. CARIS began to dominate the hydrographic information systems market, helping to map and design ports, harbours and waterways in more than 50 jurisdictions. Today CARIS employs more the 150 people in its three offices and more than 70 per cent of its sales are outside Canada.
Dr. Masry exemplifies the extraordinary, transformational power of the university as an economic engine or agent of change. Working closely with both government and industry partners, he was to his students an early role model who showed the benefits of collaboration between ivory towers and office towers. He also knew when it was time for his business to take flight and move out of the laboratory, and he was not far behind, moving from academia to business.
In a high-tech industry where the majority of new companies never see their third birthday, CARIS has celebrated more than 25. CARIS today contributes several million dollars a year to the local economy in direct expenditures and indirectly through monies spent by international trainees attending courses in Fredericton. He continues to employ large slumbers of UNB students and graduates in skilled, meaningful jobs.
Dr. Masry's vision, determination and single-minded belief in New Brunswick has been recognized with many awards including Innovator of the Year in Atlantic Canada, the Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneurial Achievement Award, inclusion in the Branham 300 group of Canada's best high-tech companies, and several accolades from the New Brunswick Knowledge Industry Task Force.
Through it all, the high and lows of founding, owning and operating a business, Dr. Masry has remained true to himself, his family and his community. He is known for his loyalty, his patience and his calm in the face of crisis. He encourages his employees to be involved with such organizations as the food bank and the Hospathon. He sponsors the championship university baseball team, the CARIS Cougars. His fantastic memory is legendary; his bargaining powers, honed in the Middle East, are formidable; and he has no bad habits we know of!
Dr. Masry, it gives us great pleasure to honour you today with an honorary Doctor of Science, just one more way we are proud to call you one of our own.
From: Honoris Causa, UA Case 70
SALEM MASRY
to be Doctor of Science
Salem Masry, or Sam as he is known to nearly everyone, began his association with the University of New Brunswick exactly 40 years ago when he became a post-doctoral fellow in surveying engineering.
A native of Egypt, Dr. Masry had just completed a PhD in photogrammetry at the University of London in England and recognized that UNB Fredericton's six-year-old surveying engineering program, already one of the best in the world, was worth being associated with. But it was Dr. Masry himself, first as a post-doc, then a research associate and finally rising through the ranks as a professor, who was to put UNB on the map, so to speak.
In the late 1960s, the field of mapping was rapidly evolving from using aerial photographs to satellite images to digital and computer technology. Dr. Masry's academic career was on the leading edge of this curve. He developed new methodologies, earned a patent, and introduced the discipline of digital mapping to UNB, all in the first eight years of his tenure here. He went on to create North America's first advanced university digital mapping laboratory, install the first digital mapping systems at the Land Registry Information Service of New Brunswick and, most important, to incorporate a company called Universal Systems Limited in 1979.
Universal Systems, of which Dr. Masry has been president and CEO for the past 27 years, was to become one of UNB'S and New Brunswick's greatest entrepreneurial success stories. Working in collaboration with his colleagues at UNB, Dr. Masry developed a unique Computer Aided Resource Information System or CARIS, one of the world's fist computerized mapping systems. Universal Systems was created to market this software all over the world.
Despite a distinguished teaching and research record, by 1986 Universal Systems and CARIS had grown large enough and busy enough that Dr. Masy left his position at UNB to focus all of his energies on the development of the company and its products. Headquartered in Fredericton, the company began international sales in 1987, and established offices first in Europe and then the United States. Various versions of CARIS were developed, expanding and improving the applications and usability of the software. CARIS began to dominate the hydrographic information systems market, helping to map and design ports, harbours and waterways in more than 50 jurisdictions. Today CARIS employs more the 150 people in its three offices and more than 70 per cent of its sales are outside Canada.
Dr. Masry exemplifies the extraordinary, transformational power of the university as an economic engine or agent of change. Working closely with both government and industry partners, he was to his students an early role model who showed the benefits of collaboration between ivory towers and office towers. He also knew when it was time for his business to take flight and move out of the laboratory, and he was not far behind, moving from academia to business.
In a high-tech industry where the majority of new companies never see their third birthday, CARIS has celebrated more than 25. CARIS today contributes several million dollars a year to the local economy in direct expenditures and indirectly through monies spent by international trainees attending courses in Fredericton. He continues to employ large slumbers of UNB students and graduates in skilled, meaningful jobs.
Dr. Masry's vision, determination and single-minded belief in New Brunswick has been recognized with many awards including Innovator of the Year in Atlantic Canada, the Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneurial Achievement Award, inclusion in the Branham 300 group of Canada's best high-tech companies, and several accolades from the New Brunswick Knowledge Industry Task Force.
Through it all, the high and lows of founding, owning and operating a business, Dr. Masry has remained true to himself, his family and his community. He is known for his loyalty, his patience and his calm in the face of crisis. He encourages his employees to be involved with such organizations as the food bank and the Hospathon. He sponsors the championship university baseball team, the CARIS Cougars. His fantastic memory is legendary; his bargaining powers, honed in the Middle East, are formidable; and he has no bad habits we know of!
Dr. Masry, it gives us great pleasure to honour you today with an honorary Doctor of Science, just one more way we are proud to call you one of our own.
From: Honoris Causa, UA Case 70
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