Bernard Rodrigo A versatile Telecom Engineer
Bernard Rodrigo, the one time Director of Telecommunications passed away recently after a prolonged illness.
Bernard was born on November 13, 1940. His parents were Joseph Rodrigo and Sylvia Rodrigo. Bernard was the youngest of a family of six, and was educated at St Joseph’s College, Darley Road Colombo 10.
He joined the Overseas Telecommunication Services as an Engineer- Planning and Development after graduating from the University of Colombo Engineering Faculty.
In 1984 when Bernard was 44-years old, he became the Deputy Director and Manager OTS and in the following year, was promoted as the Director of Telecommunications and head of the Department. He was instrumental in establishing the Cellular Mobile Telecommunication System. Celltel Lanka Ltd became the first cellular mobile telephone operator in Sri Lanka. With various telecom operators entering the field, prices of telecom services began tumbling due to the stiff competition.
Being the Director of Telecommunications, Bernard was fortunate in getting the opportunity to attend important seminars, conferences and workshops on telecommunication. He was among the group which embarked on the establishment of the Sri Lanka Earth station. COMSAT or the Communications Satellite Corporation of New York monitored the setting up. NEC, a reputed Japanese company was contracted for the setting up.
The satellite Earth Station in Padukka began providing telecommunication and television satellite services in 1975 to countries, such as the UK, Australia, Japan and India. Bernard was selected as the first Manager at the Satellite Earth Station.
With the setting up of the station in Padukka, Sri Lanka could telecast the proceedings of the Non-Aligned Nations Conference all over the world though Sri Lankans were unable to watch the proceedings due to non-availability of TVs in the country.
Bernard was appointed as a consultant for GTE in Algeria, a Boston-based company that managed Earth Satellite stations. On his return to Sri Lanka, he began serving as an assistant Director of the Civil Aviation Department and was in charge of Radio communications, of all airports, which covered Navigation systems, Instrument Landing systems (ILS) VOR (Omni directional) and Radar at the international Airport in Katunayake and domestic Airports in Ratmalana, Ampara and Batticaloa.
After being appointed as the Deputy Director Telecommunications (SLT) and manager (OTS) the SEA-ME-WE, plans for the laying of the submarine cable system were drawn up. The work was coordinated by Sri Lanka and the Colombo/Medan and Colombo/ Djibouti segments were commissioned as scheduled in 1986.
Bernard possessed a wealth of knowledge in the field of telecommunications and satellite transmission systems. Even after retiring, he received postings under several private telecom service operators. He was a Director of MTV at one time and later joined Lanka Payphones (Pvt)Ltd, the pioneer Pay Phone Company which installed card using Pay Phone machines in Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Batticaloa and Trincomalee.
In his autobiography compiled a few years ago, Bernard recalls the fond memories of his parents Joseph and Sylvia, his spouse Kanthi, his son Anthony Nirmal and daughter Prasansani Therese, in acknowledging that without their love and understanding, his journey in achieving all his expectations would not have been possible.
May his soul rest in peace
Bernard Edirisinghe