Respected by his seniors and loved by his followers

Seven months have passed since T.R. (Thakshan Rohan) Cooray passed away at the age of 86 years, about eight months after his beloved wife Jayanthi passed away. Sri Lanka lost an eminent engineer who served the country with utmost honesty and dedication. Mine was an association with him for almost 50 years and he was my role model.

In late 1969, as a young Electrical Engineer, fresh from Peradeniya University, together with my batchmate Nimal Ekanayaka, I met Mr. Cooray as my first boss at the CEB, at Laksapana Power Station. This happy meeting and many years of association with him were to have a lifelong impression on me, ten years his junior.

As we walked in to his office for the first time, we were greeted with that friendly smile. After few softspoken words, he laid before us a training programme for the next six weeks, before we were commissioned as Operations Engineers to operate the power system on 24x7 basis on shifts.

Laksapana complex had three hydro power stations with a total 175MW capacity, supplying the entire country at the time. Our training was two weeks at each power station. At the two remote stations in Norton Bridge and Polpitiya, he had arranged the training to be residential. From this introduction to duties we realized Mr Cooray meant business and we had to be equal to the task.

People working at Laksapana live in isolation from any nearby town. Official quarters are provided. For recreation two clubs with sports facilities, one for seniors and another for other staff, are provided. At the Officers’ Club we met the other, not so serious, Mr Cooray whose favourite game was playing Bridge. We as young engineers looked forward to invitations to dine at his residence and taste sumptuous meals prepared by his loving wife.

Reminiscing about Mr Cooray’s great qualities both as a professional and a human being, he never used official vehicles for private errands. To him budgeting and budgetary control were a must. His notes/ instructions were on strips (chits) torn off A4 sheets of paper to save money. Gradually we also got used to it.

He was thorough in any engineering matter in general and those associated with any power station he worked at. At CEB, to my knowledge, he had worked at power stations (both hydro and thermal) only. We often wondered from where he found the time to accumulate this vast engineering knowledge. Incidents and examples are too many to mention.

However, one incident must be mentioned. On a very rainy day at Laksapana, the water intake to Polpitiya power station (75MW) tunnel had got blocked with debris, starving the station of water supply. Water to Polpitiya station flows into an eight km long tunnel at Laksapana, ending up at a surge chamber in Polpitiya which connects to steel pipe lines taking water to turbines in the station. Around noon, Mr Cooray had been informed that there is no generation at the Polpitiya station due to lack of water in pipelines and the generators were running as synchronous motors drawing power from the system.If the station was not brought back to normal before night peak load there would have been power cuts.

He advised us to have lunch and come back within an hour. On our return he gave his “chits” to all task masters. I was asked to proceed to Polpitiya station to start the machines when conditions were back to normal (the Station Engineer was on leave). An Engineer (now resident in New Zealand) who had been with us for only 2-3 weeks at the station on training was asked to join me to travel to Polpitiya.His task was to walk to the surge chamber in the bush with two labourers from the station and check the water level there. His instruction chit to him included even the things to carry: a torch, coir ropes (length indicated) etc. Such was his attention to detail.

The restoration operation commenced around 2 p.m. Filling up the tunnel had to be done gradually, taking about four hours. The station was back to normal around 6.30 p.m, before the night peak load. My friend who went to the surge chamber returned having picked up a few leeches. The Chairman, CEB had called Mr Cooray, that evening to congratulate him and his staff for “Keeping the CEB flag flying and lights burning”.

The Maintenance Engineer for Laksapana complex was always a Chartered Engineer and generally considered the second in command at the station. During my stay after about 15 months as Operations Engineer, when the Maintenance Engineer left the station on a transfer and replacement never came, after a few months, Mr Cooray said that he wanted to put me in charge as Maintenance Engineer on condition that I serve the station for another two years. He knew I did not have the Charter at the time. I accepted. Mr Cooray moved out of Laksapana to Kelanitissa power station during this period. By then he had made me an Engineer confident to take up any challenge.

In 1973 I applied and was selected as Assistant Resident Engineer at New Laksapana Power station (100MW) under construction. In 1974, while still working at Laksapana, when I got married, Mr Cooray was my attesting witness.

Later he took up an appointment in Zambia in the Copper mines. I met him again in Zambia when I joined Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO) from 1979 to 1986.

I next met him in Sri Lanka at Lanka Electricity Company (LECO) when I joined LECO in 1986 as a Project Manager. Here he was my boss again as Engineering Manager.

When IBM PCs came to the market, Mr. Cooray doubled his efforts with all engineering personnel being made computer literate able to develop software packages.This helped cutting down time to complete certain processes by more than 50%. However, the gem LECO was endowed with, as a result of this revolutionary process started by Mr Cooray, was the inhouse GIS package with data capturing using GPS technology, which had all the features of the GIS packages available in the international market.

In 1989 LECO was required to appoint a General Manager as per agreements with Asian Development Bank to obtain project financing to develop LECO. One day Mr. Cooray asked me to join him to meet the LECO Chairman. At the meeting the Chairman asked me to take up the position and I asked Mr. Cooray why he was not taking it up. He said he wanted to continue in his present position and that he had already declined the offer from the Chairman. I am at a loss for words to write about the encouragement and cooperation I got from Mr. Cooray, in my new job.

When Mr. Cooray was to retire from LECO I offered to consult the Board and transfer the vehicle that was allocated to him. He declined. This is the gentleman who gave so much to build this company, from virtually nothing, and also to the country at large. Rare are this type of unselfish devoted human beings.

He meant so much to me as my “Guru”.

His two sons and daughter can be proud of their father who lived a very simple honest life and was a role model to many professionals, respected by his seniors and loved by his followers.

I am what I am today having gained from all what he gave me, since the day our paths crossed.

Mr. Cooray, Sir, may you attain the supreme bliss of Nirvana.