Richard Jones

Richard Mervyn Jones PEng, (SM) FEC

Richard joined the Heritage Committee on its formation in 2007. He has always been interested in how engineering has helped society develop and flourish in ways that are not immediately obvious to its citizens.

Education

He is a retired aeronautical engineer who was born in England at the end of World War Two. He was educated in Wales until in 1962 he was accepted as a cadet into the Royal Air Force College. For 4 and 2/3 years, he studied Aerodynamics at both the RAF College and the College of Aeronautics [CoA], now the Cranfield Institute of Technology.

Military Career

During his twenty-year RAF Career, he held several unique positions:

• RAF Liaison Officer for the design and development phases of the multi -role swing-wing Panavia Fighter- the Tornado. He learnt Italian and was embedded with Aeritalia [now Leonardo SPA] Panavia’s Italian Partner in Turin Italy. • Squadron engineer for a front line Phantom FGR 2 squadron • Engineer in charge of the RAFs’ last flying Lancaster’s refurbishment on the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight [BBMF]

Defense Contractor Career

After retiring from the RAF in 1982 he emigrated with his family to Winnipeg to start a Canadian factory for a mid-size US defense contractor Base Ten Systems Inc. [BTSI] headquartered in Princeton New Jersey.

Consulting Career

During the 1980s he became interested in the quality movement studying the process engineering concepts of W. Edwards Deming attending seminars and courses in Canada and the United States before creating his own consulting company to help local companies enhance their processes and improve productivity and reduce waste.

In 1994 Richard moved to Massachusetts USA joining a small boutique consulting company; Work Systems Associates who focused on developing teams for Large Engineering companies such as CH2M Hill, ABB and Raytheon create seamless partnerships. The teams involved both engineers and other professionals which undertook mega-projects that were too big for them to manage individually. These projects were mostly in Petro Chemicals, such as design and building refineries which were spread around the globe. Richard spent a decade traveling to sometimes remote work sites building and sustaining project teams in Europe and Asia and sometimes former Soviet countries such as East Germany, Uzbekistan, Romania and Slovakia.

Returning to Canada in 2006 he became a CEO coach working in Canada and the US. Formally retiring in 2014 at 75.

Compiled by

Richard Jones, PEng (SM), FEC Winnipeg, April 2026