Dr. John MacDonald, OC
Bio
Dr. MacDonald has had a distinguished career in the technology community in Canada. He is currently Chairman and CEO of Day4 Energy Inc., a solar energy company of which he is a co-founder. Day4 Energy is dedicated to exploiting a new photovoltaic technology targeted at making solar energy generation cost competitive with fossil fuel. He was also a co-founder of MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), Canada's principal space company, serving as President and CEO for 13 years and Chairman for a subsequent 16 years until his retirement from the company in 1998. Dr. MacDonald was a faculty member in engineering at UBC and MIT for a total of 12 years prior to the founding of MacDonald Dettwiler.
He has served on the Boards of numerous technology companies and continues to do so. He has been an advisor to Canadian, US and other governments internationally on science, technology, trade policy and industrial policy, currently serving on the Canadian Department of National Defense Science Advisory Board and the Photovoltaic Power Systems (PVPS) Task 8 (Very large scale Photovoltaic Power Systems) of the International Energy Agency in Paris. He served as one of three Canadian members of the APEC Business Advisory Council from 1998 to 2003 and was the Canadian member of the APEC Eminent Persons Group from 1993 to 1995. Additional highlights from the past include serving as a member of the Science Council of Canada, the National Research Council of Canada, the British Columbia Premier's Advisory Council on Science and Technology, the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology and the Science Council of British Columbia. He was also a member of the Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade (Automotive and Aerospace Sector) during the Free Trade negotiations with the U.S. He led the industrial team that successfully stimulated the formation of the Canadian Space Agency in 1989. He has also served on a number of advisory committees and boards of the U.S. government in the field of Earth observation from space.
Dr. MacDonald's technical interests lie in the areas of photovoltaic energy systems, advanced digital systems engineering, remote sensing and information processing. He led the design team for the first LANDSAT ground processing system produced by MacDonald Dettwiler and was involved in the early development of synthetic aperture radar processing at that company. In later years, Dr. MacDonald's technical activities concentrated in the areas of information extraction from advanced sensor systems and the use of integrated data sets as a means of increasing our ability to extract useful information from spaceborne Earth observation data as well as the conceptualization of RADARSAT – 2. At the present time, his technical activity is concentrated on the development of cost-competitive solar power systems and the characteristics of renewable energy dominated grids.
Dr. MacDonald has been awarded eight Honorary Degrees, and is an Officer of the Order of Canada. In 1999 he was named one of “50 most influential British Columbia business leaders of the 20th Century" and “Technology Entrepreneur of the Year" in 1995. He is a registered Professional Engineer, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (I.E.E.E.), a Founding Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute. He was awarded the I.E.E.E. Centennial Medal in 1984 and the Gold Medal of the Canadian Remote Sensing Society in 1989. In 2000 he was awarded The John H. Chapman Excellence Award of the Canadian Space Agency, the Agency's highest award.. In 2006 he was inducted as a Laureate of the British Columbia Business Hall of Fame and received the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dr. MacDonald earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1964, a Masters of Science from MIT in 1961 and a B.A.Sc. with honours from the University of British Columbia in 1959, all in Electrical Engineering. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the Province of British Columbia.
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