Harry Gordon Rogers
Harry Gordon Rogers (April 24, 1931 – February 13, 2017) was the first Comptroller General of the Government of Canada, from 1978 to 1984. He also served as deputy minister of Revenue Canada-Taxation, and deputy minister of the Department of Industry, Science and Technology. Born in Toronto, he was a graduate of the University of Western Ontario.
Personal Life[edit]
Harry Gordon Rogers was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on April 24, 1931 to father Lionel Trueman Rogers and mother Ethel Pearl Gilmour. He had two siblings Lionel William Rogers and Margaret Mary Howey.
He was raised in Barrie, Ontario and married Helen Marjorie Scott on October 20, 1950[1]. They had seven children born in Canada, Singapore, and South Africa. They also lived in Michigan, New York, and Connecticut, then returned to Canada in 1972. They divorced in 1985.
Harry Rogers married Micheline Ouellette of Trois-Rivières, Québec, on March 14, 1987, and raised two children in Ottawa, Ontario.
He died on February 13, 2017 at the age of 85 in Ottawa, Ontario.
Private Sector Career[edit]
Harry Rogers was a 1954 graduate and Economic gold medalist from the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario[2]. He was selected as Western University's delegate to the World University Service of Canada's (WUSC) seminar in India[3], in the summer of 1953. In his senior year, he was elected Prefect of the Arts and Science Student Council[4] and was elected a member of the Arts and Science Honour Society and the University Honour Society[5].
He joined the Ford Motor Company in 1954, serving in financial executive posts in Canada, Singapore, South Africa, and Dearborn, Michigan.
He was General Manager of Ford Motor Company of Japan from 1967 to 1969. In that capacity, he assisted in the start-up of Hyundai in the automotive business, as an assembler and distributor of Ford products in the South Korean market[1].
Rogers subsequently joined Xerox Corporation in 1969, as Assistant Controller in its U.S. operations based in Rochester, New York[6], and subsequently became Manager of International Financial Operations at world headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. He was a senior Vice-President of Xerox of Canada at the time of his appointment in the Government of Canada[7].
Government Career[edit]
Harry Gordon Rogers served as a senior Deputy Minister in the Government of Canada from 1978 to 1995.
He was recruited to government in 1978 to fill a new Deputy Minister position—the Comptroller General of Canada, responsible for improving financial management across the federal government[8]. The Auditor General suggested the first appointee be from the ranks of the Canadian business community.[9]
In 1984 Harry Rogers was appointed Deputy Minister of Taxation at Revenue Canada Taxation and served in that capacity until 1987[10][11][12][13]. He then became Deputy Minister of a newly created Department of Industry, Science and Technology, where he helped shape its mandate and functions[14]. In this last appointment, he served as Secretary of the Prime Minister's Advisory Board on Science and Technology. He was a Member of the Research Advisory Committee of The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research[15], a Director of the Business Development Bank of Canada[16], a Director of the Niagara Institute and a founding Director of the Public Policy Forum.
Rogers was Canadian Chairman of National Quality Month in October 1988, which led to the creation of Canada's own annual quality recognition awards system and the creation of the National Quality Institute.
Collaborative Research[edit]
Following his retirement from government service in 1995, he returned to the private sector and served as CEO of Precarn Inc.[17], an industrial consortium performing collaborative research in robotics and intelligent systems, until 2000. During this time, he was also a Board member of the Canadian Centre for Marine Communications of St. John's, Newfoundland, and a member of the Board of Directors of Aerospatiale Canada Inc., now EADS Canada.
He was a member of the Board of Directors of GasTOPS Limited, an Ottawa high tech company, for seventeen years beginning in 1998, eleven of them as Board Chair.
He also served on the Board of the Ottawa General Hospital for nine years, four of them as Board Chair.
References[edit]
- ↑ http://news.ourontario.ca/Barrie/1067896/data
- ↑ University of Western Ontario Annual Spring Convocation Program, June 5, 1954, page 7
- ↑ University of Western Ontario Gazette "An Indian Summer" by Harry Rogers October 2, 1953
- ↑ University of Western Ontario Gazette February 20, 1953
- ↑ University of Western Ontario Gazette May 22, 1953
- ↑ Democrat and Chronicle, August 4, 1969, Rochester, New York
- ↑ Montreal Gazette, February 21, 1978
- ↑ The Ottawa Journal, September 15, 1979
- ↑ Montreal Gazette, February 21, 1978
- ↑ Review of Revenue Canada Taxation, Summary Report 1985, pp 10, 19, Woodes Gordon publ.
- ↑ https://jeremyturcotte.wordpress.com/2015/02/06/better-know-a-canadian-functionary-the-commissioner-of-revenue/
- ↑ Nanaimo Daily News March 14, 1987
- ↑ https://books.google.com/books?id=TX_EzG14D60C&pg=PP6&lpg=PP6&dq=deputy+minister+taxation+canada+harry+rogers&source=bl&ots=crrtbOQ5MG&sig=oNU_504ojDQK5Jlt52vuZRH8-Vo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiD8cTZiM7aAhUF3VMKHZs0CqQQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=deputy%20minister%20taxation%20canada%20harry%20rogers&f=false
- ↑ National Conference on Technology and Innovation, January 13-15, 1988, Toronto, Ontario, page 101
- ↑ A Generation of Excellence, A History of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, by Robert Craig Brown, pp. 224, 226, 246, 248
- ↑ The History of the Business Development Bank of Canada from 1979 to 1995, by Donald Layne, list of board of directors, H.G. Rogers, p. 235
- ↑ http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=173809
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