1982: Victor John Osola

Victor John Osola (1926-2003)

97th President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers

Victor John (Vaino Juhani) Osola was born in 1926 in Hull, England and was educated at Hymers College.

He studied for an engineering diploma at the Technical College in Sunderland and then a degree at the University of Durham. He undertook his practical training with William Doxford and Sons, marine engine manufacturers in Sunderland, and then Det Danske Staalvalsevaerk steelworks in Denmark. He completed his initial training carrying out industrial gas turbine research with C A Parsons and Co in Newcastle.

In the post-war years, Osola held a technical commission in the Electrical and Mechanical branch of the Corps of the Royal Engineers. He served in the Middle East as a Garrison Engineer at Suez. In 1952, he transferred to the chemical industry working for Procter & Gamble as a Senior Project Engineer. His experience with the firm led to an appointment at Lankro Chemicals as a Works Engineer and then Chief Engineer.

The next fourteen years were spent in the glass industry, working for Pilkington. In 1978, his team won the MacRobert Award for the development of Triplex Ten Twenty glass and its production processes. During his time as General Manager of the Reinforcements Division of Fibreglass Ltd, he oversaw the successful construction of the largest glass fibre reinforcement factory in the UK at Wrexham. In 1979, Osola joined the Board of Redman Heenan International as a non-Executive Director. He later became Chief Executive and was Chairman of all of the group’s subsidiary companies.

Between 1974 and 1979 he was asked to become an independent member of the Mechanical Engineering and Machine Tools R&D Requirements Board of the DoI. He presided over the setting up of the Automated Small batch Production Committee and the Computer Aided Engineering Panel.

In 1982, he was elected President of the IMechE, having served on the Council for eight years. He was also involved in the running of the Process Engineering Group and the Technical Policy Board, acting as Chair for both. In the wider professional arena, he gained membership of the Institute of Energy, membership of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and was elected to the Fellowship of Engineering. He was awarded a CBE in 1980 and was also made a Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Engineers.

He died in 2003.

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