Maurice Drew grew up in Smiths Falls, Ontario leaving the Smiths Falls Collegiate Institute in 1957 to attend four years of military college in Kingston, Ontario. Maurice majored in radio and telecommunications engineering and became both a professional and an amateur radio operator although never actually practicing these professions.

 

After a brief career in a new counter-intelligence group in the Signal Corps Maurice left the army and was almost immediately recruited into Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) as a civilian research officer in 1963. This was the time of the cold war and for the next eleven years Maurice was actively engaged in ferreting out enemy operatives both in Canada and abroad. Some of the more electric experiences were participating in electronic counter-measures in the high arctic and visited the North Pole in 1964.

 

Maurice was also a frequent visitor to the Strategic Air Command base in Thule Greenland where he met many of the flyers who spent long hours in B52 bombers patrolling the Arctic skies prepared for pre-emptive strikes should the enemy become belligerent.

 

They were frightening times but when tempers cooled in 1974 and the planet survived Maurice left to join the Department of Communications (DOC). 

 

Faced with new challenges, Maurice worked in the operations group at DOC headquarters where his role included frequency selection, technical analysis, frequency coordination and database auditing. One of his more demanding responsibilities was liaising with his counterparts in the Federal Communications Commission and the Interdepartmental Radio Advisory Council in Washington in the mitigation of harmful interference between radio stations in Canada and the United States. Maurice was in constant communication with officials of the FCC, NTIA and JCS in Washington and Canadian departmental staff from St. John’s Newfoundland to Victoria British Columbia. Over the next ten years he got to know many of them as close friends.

 

Just prior to national expansion of the Assignment and Licensing System (ALS) in the winter of 1980/81 Maurice decided to move to exciting new challenges of coordinating operations in the newly formed Automated Applications Directorate. It was in this role that he finally met those in the regions whom he knew only by voice. As Chair of many national conferences Maurice traveled across Canada to see first hand how staff in the Districts completed their day-to-day activities returning to Ottawa with ideas and opinions on how to improve them. It was with this in mind that Maurice designed the Technical and Administrative Frequency List (TAFL) that was put into operation in 1982 as the national reporting system. To this day it is available on the Industry Canada website. Maurice was also responsible for the automation of many operations and was a principle manager in the development of a mobile radio monitoring system in 1994 in collaboration with staff at the Spectrum Service Centers at Acton, Ontario and St. Remi, Quebec.

 

The Department began downsizing activities in the mid 1990’s where incentives were offered to those who had the right numbers to take early retirement. So after more than 28 years with the Department Maurice and his family was treated to a fancy lunch by his friends and colleagues and given a golden handshake in 1995.  

 

A year later, Maurice was asked to join Spectrocan, a Canadian company who markets Canadian spectrum management technology to developing countries. In a consulting capacity he took a two-year assignment to Jakarta Indonesia where an automated frequency management system was being installed. Maurice was to see this project evolve into a complex but successful program. The Indonesian experience didn’t go without its unique set of challenges, however because he and his wife Cathy were evacuated during a fierce and lethal uprising against the government of the time. Escaping to Singapore in the middle of the night, they waited two weeks before returning home to Canada and safety. Since then, Maurice has traveled the world lecturing on the principles of spectrum management to countries struggling with the concepts of radio regulatory issues. He also delivers regular seminars and papers to the Radio Bureau of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the Telecommunications Executive Management Institute of Canada (TEMIC) in Montreal.

 

When Maurice isn’t traveling he likes to spend his summers at one of his favorite places, Trident Yacht Club, sailing the St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario loosing every sailing race he enters.