Robert Kerr

Robert Kerr was born in Galt in 1929 and was educated at Galt Collegiate Institute where he started a student newspaper. Following graduation he joined with his father to form John Kerr & Son, which specialized in printing reserved seat tickets. Customers included Maple Leaf Gardens and the Stratford Festival.

Always interested in politics, Kerr was elected to Galt City Council in 1957. In 1964 he was elected the youngest mayor in Galt’s history, an office he held for four one-year terms. In 1975-76 he served one two-year term as Mayor of the amalgamated City of Cambridge.

In 1965 Kerr joined with his high school friend Graeme Ferguson, to form Ferguson Kerr Ltd., which produced the multi-screen film Polar Life for the Man and the Polar Regions pavilion at Expo 67. Building on that experience they joined with Roman Kroitor and William Shaw and founded a revolutionary new motion picture system, which they called IMAX. For 20 years Kerr was the chair of the company. Ferguson and Kroitor were the film makers, and Bill Shaw was the engineer.

The first permanent IMAX theatre was built at Ontario Place in 1971. In 1976 the Smithsonian Institute incorporated an IMAX theatre into its National Air and Space Museum. There are now 500 IMAX theatres in 45 countries. The company was subsequently sold by its founders.

In October 2010 the City of Cambridge unveiled a memorial in Kerr’s honour in Mill Race Park.