Our association with Professor George Metaxas goes back to July 2004 when he attended the 4th Global Congress on Engineering Education held in Bangkok, Thailand, and presented a research paper. The Congress was organised by the then UNESCO International Centre for Engineering Education (UICEE) based at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. A year later, in September 2005, he attended the 4th Asia-Pacific Forum on Engineering and Technology Education, also organised by the UICEE. A follow-up to these initial meetings took place in 2006, when the WIETE Director (then UICEE Director), as part of his European trip, visited the then Technological Education Institute of Piraeus (TEI-Piraeus), Piraeus-Athens, now known as the University of West Attica - Campus 2, and held useful discussions on possible future co-operation with Prof. Metaxas.

The co-operation and partnership between the WIETE and the TEI-Piraeus were established in 2009, thanks to the motivation and perseverance of Prof. Metaxas and the mutual recognition of benefits arising from the WIETE’s objective to establish and maintain interest groups, regional networks and centres of excellence. Shortly afterwards, in 2010, the Mediterranean Centre for Engineering and Technology Education (MCETE) was established at the TEI-Piraeus as the first WIETE satellite centre. This partnership was facilitated by Prof. Metaxas, then the Dean of Engineering.

In his role as Dean of Engineering he had the vision and the passion to make the MCETE a centre of excellence for research and learning in engineering and technology education in the Mediterranean region, and beyond. The MCETE, under his Directorship took on the task of attracting staff and postgraduate students to his vision, and consolidate resources necessary for this enterprise to facilitate their work and research publications.

It was his achievement to revive some of the international activities well established in the UICEE; namely, the Mediterranean Seminar on Engineering Education by undertaking the organisation of the 3rd Mediterranean Seminar on Engineering and Technology Education held at the TEI-Piraeus in September 2013. Also, the MCETE hosted, on behalf the WIETE, the 3rd World Conference on Technology and Engineering Education in 2014 and the 7th WIETE Annual Conference on Engineering and Technology Education combined with the 4th Mediterranean Seminar on Engineering and Technology Education, both held in April 2016. Three other Mediterranean Seminars were organised by the MCETE staff (2017, 2018 and 2019), until the Covid-19 pandemic and George’s retirement.

Over the period of time spanning from 2004 up to 2020, George and his associated staff and postgraduate students published numerous research papers on engineering and technology education in the proceedings of the WIETE conferences, as well as the WIETE journals that is the Global Journal of Engineering Education (GJEE) and the World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education (WTE&TE). George was also strongly involved in the life and achievements of the WIETE in his role as a Vice-President of the WIETE International Academic Advisory Committee (WIETE-IAAC), and a member of the Editorial Boards of the two WIETE journals, peer-reviewing many articles submitted to the WIETE conferences and journals, and serving as Guest Editor of several issues of the journals. He made an enormous contribution to the WIETE through his fruitful engagement, openness to ideas and limitless enthusiasm about new WIETE activities.

A man of great wisdom and experience, George was always eager to help directly or offer useful advice. He was friendly, honest and generous, had a wonderful sense of humour which defused many difficult situations - he will be sorely missed. With his passing, both the WIETE and the international engineering and technology education community have lost an exceptional practitioner, engineer, consultant, academic and educator, and we have lost a loyal and dedicated supporter, and a cordial colleague and friend.

We wish to offer our heartfelt condolences to his wife Irene, his daughters Sophia and Eleftheria, as well as to his extended family.

Farewell George, we will always remember you!