William Tyree


Sir Alfred William Tyree OBE was an Australian engineer and businessman who is said to have transformed the Australian engineering, manufacturing and power industries.
Tyree was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1921. He obtained a Diploma of Electrical Engineering at Sydney Technical College. He established Tyree Holdings, a manufacturer of electrical transformers. By the early 1960s he was the largest manufacturer of transformers in the southern hemisphere. In 1969, he sold the business to Westinghouse Electric Company. Tyree left manufacturing and pursued philanthropic and humanitarian interests. He returned to manufacturing, founding the Tyree Group of Companies.
Tyree was described as an engineering dynamo. In a six-decade career, he led the way in Australian electrical transformer manufacture and created the modern energy landscape. He was an advocate for nuclear energy, working on it with Westinghouse. He died in 2013, in his 92nd year.

Honours

In 1971 he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. In 1975 he was knighted.
In 2001 he was awarded the Centenary Medal.