OBITUARY

Ron Spithill OAM FTSE passed away on 7/12/2025.

Ron Spithill was elected to the ATSE Fellowship in 2007. He was recognised for his engineering and leadership in guiding a global telecommunication company – Alcatel – with outstanding success in Australia, Asia, and Europe over more than 40 years.

He played a key role in establishing Alcatel's Submarine Cable manufacturing facility at Botany Bay. The Botany Bay facility was Australia's largest exporter of high technology equipment in the 1990s, shipping $ 1 billion of optical fibre submarine cable around the world.

Ron was a member of the ATSE Education Forum from 2008 to 2018, and the Digital Futures Forum in 2021. He was involved in the nominations of several Fellows, and took part in many ATSE events. In addition to his broad experience as a telecommunications engineer, he also had a personal interest in the early detection of glaucoma.

Ron Spithill is an Australian telecommunication engineer who has led the operations of Alcatel, a global company with outstanding success, first in Australia, subsequently in China and Asia, and ultimately at head office in Paris where he was a member of the nine person Executive Committee and had world-wide responsibility for marketing the company's products and services. Individual contracts were frequently in the billion-dollar range. He occupied virtually every technical role in the company in a forty-year career, and two of his notable achievements were the establishment of Alcatel's Submarine Cable manufacturing facility at Botany Bay, and his Presidency of Alcatel Bell Shanghai (ABS) in China. The Botany Bay facility was Australia's largest exporter of high technology equipment in the 1990s shipping $ 1 billion of optical fibre submarine cable. ABS became China's major supplier of Telecommunication services and equipment which he grew in three years to a turnover of$ A 4 billion. Ron has now retired from his Executive role at Alcatel and returned to Australia. He has since been appointed to the Board of Telecom New Zealand and appointed as an Advisor to Macquarie Bank on Telecommunications matters. He regularly participates in the Australian Davos Connection annual Leadership Retreat and was among the Top 100 Australians who have been based overseas as judged by Advance Australia.