Over 50 long standing business associates and family members gathered on the Friday afternoon to pay tribute to Peter’s exceptional career over a steakhouse lunch. “Peter has not only had 42 years of outstanding service in the Action Instruments sphere but has contributed to the industry for 63 years.” said Jacques Franken, Director of Action Instruments. “
Those of us that know Peter admire him not only for his business efforts, but also for his personal values as a devoted husband, father and grandfather. His love for technology, gadgets, family and photographs is widely known. He has provided valuable counsel to our customers and transferred much of his knowledge and insight to our staff. I want to thank Peter for his service and dedication in serving our customers and growing our company. We are indebted to his vision and commitment which enabled our present position as a market leader in instrumentation. We all wish Peter the very best!”
Peters Highlights:
- Peter married Janet almost 55 years ago. Their 3 children and spouses and 8 grandchildren all live in South Africa.
- Peter has been a technophile since his teenage years where he fiddled with radio sets and created inch reel-to-reel tape decks, thus making his own tape recorders. He also founded a radio club in high school and became a licensed Radio Amateur.
- He started working as a technician and an operator at the National Institute of Telecommunications Research of the CSIR. The very first satellites that were launched from Cape Canaveral would be tracked by their technology and Peter would collate the data that came from the tracking equipment and send it by telex directly back to SPACECON (now NASA) in Washington DC.
- Peter went through a 4-year technical education field /work program through TELKOM. This included working in telephone & telex exchanges, installing phones & telexes, cable jointing, open telephone wire field work, no-break diesel power supplies and also becoming a specialist microwave technician.
- He then spent his next 15 years at Associated Electronics based in Braamfontein and became a specialist in several fields of activity including the BOURNS range of potentiometers. Peter was responsible for importing specialist high-temperature cables and connectors, bringing the inventor of Strobotac® stroboscopes into the country and an exclusive agency deal with Yokogawa Electric Works in Japan.
- On March 1, 1981 Peter in collaboration with Mike Brown opened Action Instruments as one of the Directors and the core Sales Engineer.
“Awesome Awesome! What a gathering of so many esteemed guests. It was absolutely fantastic to see so many friends and older collegues,” Kelvin Price, MD of C W Price & Co
