In memoriam

Remembering Wilfred (Willy) Klein

MBA Class of 1972

Willy Klein was born on 04 March 1943 in the southern part of what was then still South West Africa.  He completed his B.Sc Civil Engineering (B.Sc Eng) at the University of Cape Town in 1967, registering with the Engineering Councils of both Namibia and South Africa as a Professional Engineer.  Willy was a Member of the South African Institution of Civil Engineers and spoke fluent English, German and Afrikaans as well as a fair amount of Nama and some Portuguese. He loved farming – only stopping in 2021, and profoundly enjoyed travelling through Namibia and around the world, being at ease with many different cultures and the multitude of people he met from across the world.

In addition to loving his commercial beef farming business, Willy started an ostrich farming business in southern Namibia in the 1990s.  Willy was also responsible for a feasibility study, financial engineering, funding, planning, implementation and management of ProHatch, a small-scale commercial ostrich egg incubation station enterprise at Mariental, Namibia.

Following on a role as design and resident engineer in the late 1960s in the roads and bridges section at Van Niekerk, Kleyn and Edwards, Consulting Engineers, Cape Town, as a young engineer in South Africa in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Willy was the Assistant Resident Engineer for the construction of the trunk road between Fort Beaufort and Seymour, and then the RE for the construction of the precast and prestressed concrete bridge over the Elands River on the trunk road between Seymour and Alice.

Willy joined Ove Arup and Partners, Windhoek in 1970, eventually becoming a partner.  In the then South West Africa, he provided site supervision of and contract administration for the strengthening of the Swakop River bridge, of the Omaruru River bridge and the construction of the bridge over the Khan River at Wilhelmstal.

In the mid-1980s Willy moved his family to Johannesburg, where he was the Projects Director at Systems Designs (Pty) Ltd - Telecommunications and Broadcasting Consultants and Project Managers in Johannesburg.  

Returning to Namibia in the late 1980s, Willy started his own business in Windhoek - Technology Systems & Management (TSM).  Through the 1990s and 2000s TSM provided professional services to multiple government departments, inter-ministerial committees and on major national projects for Namibia.  His engineering and project management projects were too many to list in detail, and included the provision of professional services relating to the new state archives, the new facilities for the Geological Survey and on the Möwe Bay Harbour Feasibility Project.  In the mid-1990s, Willy provided project management services for Sumitomo Corporation of Tokyo, Japan for a new Standard “A” satellite earth station for Telecom Namibia.  At about the same time and then again later from 2004 to 2006, he was the team leader for a Pre-Feasibility Study of Future Port Facilities in Namibia, involving technical, economic, financial, socio-economic, environmental and strategic issues for the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communication. 

In Angola throughout the 1990s, Willy also provided turnkey planning, operating, maintenance and project management, including for the Norsk Hydor/Sonangol P&P offices in Luanda. In the 2000s,  Willy provided EPC Project and Financial Management to the Ministry of Works for a national weather radar station, Systems and Project Management for a national computer-based project.  He was the sole member of Dispute Adjudication Boards for the City of Windhoek in 2004 and the Project Manager of UAG’s new 5-star Hilton Hotel in Windhoek, the Trift Towers Residential Development and the User-Client’s Project Representative for the Megabuild Pupkewitz New Centre in Windhoek.

Willy passed away at the age of 81 years on 04 June 2024 at his home in Windhoek, Namibia, after a six-month-long illness.  He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Nell, his son, Franz and daughter, Katja.