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Ronald Baden Howe Wills was born on July 23, 1939 in Glebe, the eldest of three boys. His father Baden had many trades in Northern Australia and went to work in a tin mine in Thailand just before World War II. He was later interned as a civilian by the Japanese at Changi in Singapore.

After the war, Baden returned to work at Leichhardt’s ice factory. A year later he went back to Thailand. That year was the short time seven-year-old Ron had to form memories of his father. Baden made the fateful decision to take a job as a dredger for a tin mine in Ipoh, Malaya. There he was shot by communist terrorists in 1948 and died at the age of 48. Ron, aged nine, was the one to whom the police delivered the telegram.

After this tragedy, Ron’s mother, Cissie Howe (nee Gum), the daughter of Chinese immigrants, used the mine’s substantial insurance payout to buy a Chinese restaurant in Haymarket, allowing the boys to board at Newington College. Ron used to joke that he went from one of the poorest public schools in the inner city to one of the most prestigious. He flourished at school and in rugby union, eventually playing for the first XV.

Initially, Ron worked in accounting at the GPO before joining the CSIRO as a lab assistant. In the late 1950s he enrolled part-time at the then NSW University of Technology, which became the University of NSW. He became an active member of the college rugby club, playing for the first XV in those early days before captaining the second XV to a premiership in 1963.

One of his teammates was undergraduate trade student Peter Ritchie, who would become one of McDonald’s Australia’s first employees and later its CEO. The two would later cross professional paths in the 1980s.

Wills graduated with honors as a Bachelor of Science in 1965 and a PhD from Macquarie University in 1971. Armed with his PhD, he left the CSIRO Division of Food Nutrition in 1972 to accept an appointment as Senior Lecturer in the Department of Nutrition at the University of Otago, Dunedin.

In 1975 he returned to UNSW as an associate professor of Food Technology. He resumed participating in college sports. This time, he began a significant involvement with the UNSW Athletics Club (UNSWAC) from 1976 to 1990. As a member of the academic staff, he became a patron of the club and later president for three years.

Scientist Ron Willis helped test the sugar content of a McDonalds sandwich.Credit:Getty

Wills competed for the club as a master from his late thirties to early fifties. He could be relied upon to compete in both the winter cross-country and summer track and field seasons. He was generous in his support of UNSWAC and encouraged student athletes regardless of ability, and after leaving UNSWAC, he continued to contribute to athletic activities.

In the 1980s, Ron was approached by former classmate Peter Ritchie to research and experiment with ways to improve McDonald’s products. He was involved in introducing a wholemeal bun and reducing the sugar content of the bun. For a few years, he and a colleague identified the entire contents to enable labeling on McDonald’s menus. During his first lecture of the year, he asked new students what they thought about the McDonald’s sandwich. This was his way of teaching his students to have an open and inquisitive mind, to dispel prejudice and to base conclusions on evidence.

Wills has also gained global recognition for his consulting work in Asia and the Pacific through the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and with AusAid projects.

Ron Wills in one of his last athletic endeavors at Ryde Athletics Centre.

In 1990 he left UNSW to move to Melbourne to become the Foundation Director of the Academy of Grain Technology. There he was instrumental in organizing field sites for commercial crop trials in high rainfall areas. In one of the coldest locations, the harvest was 22 percent higher than had been recorded for any wheat crop on the Australian mainland.

In 1994, Ron applied for a position on the academic staff of the then newly established Department of Food Technology at Newcastle University’s undeveloped Ourimbah campus. He said he always wanted to work on a “greenfields site”. When he first visited the campus, it was without buildings or students.

The University of Newcastle UniNews of April 2005 in a report on Wills’ retirement noted that: “Ron’s capacity for leadership, his tenacity in research, his ability to attract significant funding, and his encouragement of students are legendary.”

It was quoted in that article that one of his major achievements was the success of his senior research students and the most significant contribution their work made to our country. He continued his supervision work until his death.

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Wills is listed as a notable food technology teacher in Who is who. He was a Foundation Director of the Food Industry Development Centre, a major research center established by the Australian Government. In 2001 he was awarded the Centenary Medal with the mention “For service to Australian society in food science and technology”.

In February 2021, at the age of 81, Ron raced the track for the last time at the NSW Masters Championships. He won his age group with a time of 1:48.25 in the 400 meters, an excellent time.

Ron is survived by his wife Rita, his first wife Margaret and their children, Stephen, David, Jennifer, Karen and Denise and brother Jim.

Leslie Conye is a past president of the UNSW Athletics Club.