Neil Wilson

My father Robert was a toolmaker, but he wanted me to go out and learn something worthwhile before joining the family business. So I did, returning to the business in 1977 after a six-year cadetship & honours degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Technology Sydney. Our partnership made sense then & now – we both realised that my father gave the business life, but my engineering degree meant that I gave the business a future. To support this academic qualification, I spent three years working on the trade side, after which I took over the business’ management and my father returned to toolmaking. We worked side by side for 30 years, which is a very unusual thing, and my father continued to work fulltime until he was 80.

Throughout our research work in the 1980s, I found there was funding available for new projects & innovation. I won a grant to design & build a heavy-lift robot. This ground-breaking technology was successful, more robots were made, and at the project’s conclusion the division was sold to another company. Then the awards started to flow – research and development grants for rapid tooling & multi-nozzle injection won Romar ‘Innovation of the Year’ & ‘Excellence in Innovation’ awards across the country, and both products were inducted into the Australian Technology Showcase. Now, Romar is active in research & development (strategically aligned with CSIRO & RMIT University) in advanced manufacturing, product engineering, biotechnology & medical devices, and defence & space. We manufacture both metal alloy tools and products made from polymers (including elastomers) using hybrid (additive & subtractive) 3D printing of metals.