It is with great sadness that the UK Industrial Vision Association (UKIVA) announces the death of former director Don Braggins, at the age of 70, following the diagnosis an inoperable brain tumour in October 2010. Don was a very popular and highly regarded figure in the world of industrial vision and made an outstanding contribution to the UKIVA.
Don's 'Machine Vision Consultancy' was one of the founder members of the Association in 1992 and then in 1995 he took over its administration. This was a role he continued, as well as providing technical support, for the following 14 years, before overseeing the transition of the Association into a Special Interest Group of the Processing and Packaging Machinery Association (PPMA) in 2009. He continued as a consultant to the Association until December 2010.
In addition to the role he played for the Association, Don was active in many other areas of vision. He was elected a Fellow of SPIE in 1990. He was a member of the jury for the annual 'Innovation' prize at the Vision exhibition in Stuttgart from 2000-2009, and served on the Executive Committee of the European Machine Vision Association for six years.
Don was passionate about spreading the word on the uses of vision industry – the prime objective of the UKIVA, and he authored numerous articles on the subject. In addition, from 2005 to 2009 he acted as associate editor for machine vision for the peer-reviewed SPIE journal, Optical Engineering. There is no doubt that the high regard that the world of vision holds for Don has helped the UKIVA become the force that it is today and he will be sorely missed. He leaves a wife, two children and five grandchildren.
