Stuart, Ronald S.

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1993
RONALD S. STUART
to be Doctor of Science

At a time in life when most people think about retiring, Dr. Ron Stuart left behind a highly successful career as an organic chemist and came back to his alma mater, UNB, to become its director of research services. He insisted that the University pay him only on a part-time basis, but since 1982, he has worked full-time and then some to build up this University's research funding, its contract connections with industry, and its advance into several highly specialised areas of advanced technology. Thanks in large measure to his efforts, the University now boasts the Manufacturing Technology Centre, CADMI Electronics, the Wood Science Technology Centre, as well as endowed chairs in administration and several branches of engineering. He played a critical role in establishing INCUTECH, the innovation centre on campus which seeks to link budding high tech companies with the University's research and consultative resources.

Ron Stuart obviously loves a challenge and hard work. These are qualities nurtured in him in his youth. He grew up on a farm in Albert County, New Brunswick, one of seven children in a family that valued self-discipline, ambition, and above all education as the means to achievement. As a schoolboy, he walked several miles to school or, if lucky, got a ride in the horse-drawn school van. The magnificent old Riverside Consolidated School still stands today as a reminder of the sacrifices willingly made by rural New Brunswickers to ensure that their children received the best education they could afford. While Ron Stuart graduated in the midst of the Great Depression, he had the start that carried him through UNB's science program and on to graduate degrees including his doctorate at the University of Toronto. Subsequently, in his long and distinguished career as a research scientist and research director at several Canadian companies, most notably the pharmaceutical giant, Merck and its affiliates, he worked with others in pioneering new drugs in the treatment of glaucoma, cardiovascular disease, and asthma.

Both in industry and here at UNB, Ron Stuart's great accomplishment has been to bring people together to do collectively what they might never have achieved alone. He is both facilitator and catalyst, a chemist who understands that success depends on the right mix. Fortunately for both New Brunswick and UNB, Ron Stuart has brought back to his native province the skills that can help us discover a new chemistry linking university, industry, and government. For this commitment and for a job well done, we salute him.

From: Honoris Causa - UA Case 70, Box 3