Rod Meyer was at PBHS as a boarder in Rissik House from 1958-1962. He matriculated in 1962, was a school prefect, played 1st XV and did well at Athletics. He went on to Wits, where he graduated as a Mechanical Engineer in 1967. After qualifying, he first joined Highveld Steel in Witbank, where he spent the rest of his working life. After 4 years at Highveld he joined Rand Carbide, who were later taken over by Highveld. At Rand Carbide he gained valuable experience as a project engineer in air filtrations systems, which he was able to develop further on his return to Highveld Steel. He visited Scandinavia, Germany, Japan and Australia studying advanced systems for Air Pollution. In 1998 he was asked to organise the 11th World Clean Air Congress which was held in Durban, where he was recognised by the International Union of Air Pollution and Environmental Protection Associations. He retired from Highveld in 2004.
His interests included music (singing, nurtured originally at Boys High with Gilbert and Sullivan), a youth gospel band where he sang and played guitar and a double bass in his university days and singing in his church choir. His other interests included photography, building scale model sailing ships like HMS Trafalgar and HMS Victory and researching his family genealogy. He was also a member of the Witbank Probus Club, serving a two -year period recently as President.
After 49 years of marriage Rod leaves his wife Gail, a daughter Meryl and 2 sons both ex Boys High, Steve (1988) and Leith (1992) and 5 grandchildren. He died in Pretoria on 27th Sept 2018 aged 73, after a brave struggle to recover from a brain bleed sustained in an accidental fall in his home.
Ed Meyer