SIR Robert Cowan, the last and longest serving chairman of Highlands
and Islands Development Board and the first chairman of Highlands and
Islands Enterprise, died early yesterday of cancer. He was 60.
His successor, Mr Fraser Morrison, said: ''Bob was the one man who did
most in the last decade to help prepare Highlands and islands business
and community life for the twenty-first century.''
The HIE's chief executive, Mr Iain Robertson, said of his former
chairman: ''Scotland's Highlands and islands have lost a friend whose
personal courage, unblunted intellect, and wit will leave an unfilled
space. Our thoughts are particularly with his wife Margaret and his
family.''
Sir Robert was the unexpected appointment to the HIDB chairmanship in
1982. Indeed, local humour held that his name should not be Robert Cowan
but Robert Co Th'ann, which sounds roughly the same but translates from
Gaelic as, Robert Who is he?
He was a native of Edinburgh had pursued a career in industry,
initially in England. He was a director of PA Management Consultants Ltd
in Hong Kong from 1975-82.
Sir Robert's surprise appointment to the HIDB post led to speculation
that he had some connection with the Government and, more particularly,
that his sister had attended the same Oxford College as Mrs Thatcher.
Sir Robert once confirmed that, not only had that been the case, but
his sister had also studied the same subject as Mrs Thatcher. However,
he said this conspiracy theory was weakened by the fact that his
sister's politics were such at the time that her company would not have
been sought by Mrs Thatcher.
Mr Brian Wilson, Labour MP and long-time observer of the HIDB, said
yesterday there was nothing from his business backgound which would have
suggested the depth of commitment Bob Cowan was to form for the
Highlands and islands.
He had spent some time at Inverewe in his youth but the attachment
grew the stonger on his return from the Far East. ''Emotionally it just
gets you by the balls'' was how he once described it.
His appointment coincided with the closure of the Invergordon smelter,
with nearly 1000 people thrown out of work. The experience left its mark
and convinced him that the company town had no place in the Highlands.
Many now believe that Sir Robert's appointment actually saved the HIDB
from the Thatcher government's offensive on quangos. He had his knuckles
rapped by the Scottish Office from time to time, yet managed to direct
an interventionist agency while somehow protecting it by the rhetoric of
the market-place.
He could hardly disguise his anger in 1990 when the government moved
to transform the HIDB into HIE, but quickly threw his all into ensuring
the new body worked and that it retained its social responsibilities.
Some will argue that his most important achievement was to pioneer the
#16m initiative which will give the Highlands and islands the most
advanced rural telecommunications system in Europe.
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