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.