WATERLOO, Ontario—Sam Visaisouk, a visionary businessman who helped turn devulcanization technology company Tyromer Inc. into a global commercial enterprise, died Jan. 2 at the age of 77 after a battle with cancer.
Visaisouk's son, 39-year-old Jon, who was Tyromer chief operating officer, has taken over as CEO since his father's passing.
"It was heartbreaking for us," Jon Visaisouk said. "Sam put his whole life, the whole back part of his life, into this. Tyromer isn't a start-up, they incorporated the company back in 2009, so Sam had been working with the team there for quite a while. It's too bad that he didn't get to see all the fruits of his labor. … The foundation that he set for us was really good."
As an entrepreneur in residence at Ontario's University of Waterloo, Sam received a pitch for the idea that would become Tyromer: a full scale, tire-to-tire devulcanization and recycling process.
"(Students or professors) develop some kind of technology or some kind of IP and they say, 'Is this worth pursuing? Is this worth trying to commercialize,' " Jon said. "(Sam) would really be the one to kind of give the advice to try to move forward and make this a real business."
"Tyromer was born out of the University of Waterloo. Sam, at the time, was just the entrepreneur in residence at Waterloo, but when this project came, he said that this looks like a good enough technology and project, (and) we should try to commercialize it."
Within a few years of hearing the pitch, Visaisouk himself was running the company, and helped it receive major funding for an expansion in 2017. Jon added that Costas Tzoganakis, the professor who originally brought the idea to Visaisouk, is still with Tyromer today as the company's chief technology officer and a member of its board of directors.