The Chief Evangelist of the North: The Entertaining History of Dr. Tom Lee

In the sprawling, brainy ecosystem of the University of Waterloo—often dubbed the "MIT of the North"—few figures bridge the gap between hard-core academic theory and high-flying commercial success quite like Dr. Tom Lee. A self-proclaimed "boy from the Hood" (Downsview, Toronto, that is) who came to Waterloo for the engineering and stayed for the love (literally and figuratively), Lee’s journey is a masterclass in how to turn a "poor grad student" side hustle into a career that revolutionized how the world learns mathematics and engineering.

The Origin Story: From Downsview to the "eHood"

Long before he was a titan of Canadian tech, Tom Lee was a kid growing up in Downsview, Toronto. It was a neighborhood he describes with grit and affection, a place that gave him the street smarts he’d later apply to the boardrooms of the tech world. He arrived at the University of Waterloo with a hunger for Systems Design Engineering, a discipline perfect for someone who sees the world as a complex web of interconnected problems waiting to be solved.

Lee didn’t just dip his toes into Waterloo life; he dove in headfirst. He completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Systems Design Engineering before tackling a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. His doctoral focus was on "surface modeling for CAD systems"—heavy, mathematical work that would bore most people to tears but which Lee found fascinating.

The Maple Love Affair

It was during his graduate grind that Lee stumbled upon a piece of software that would define the first half of his career: Maple. Developed by the university's own Symbolic Computation Group, Maple was a computer algebra system that could do math symbolically rather than just numerically.

Lee recounts his first encounter with the software like a romantic comedy meet-cute. He realized that Maple didn’t just help him solve problems; it made him "look smarter in front of potential grad supervisors." Hooked on the feeling of computing symbolic matrix products in seconds while his peers scribbled furiously on paper, he became a superfan.

But passion doesn't pay the rent. In 1989, describing himself as a "poor graduate student" who needed money to "feed his habits" (which he clarified were eating and visiting his parents), he took a contract job with the fledgling company Waterloo Maple Software (now Maplesoft). His job? To build small engineering demos.

He recalls the "shock and awe" on the faces of engineering colleagues when he demonstrated what the software could do. What started as a gig to buy groceries turned into a decades-long tenure. Lee rose through the ranks from code-slinger to Vice President of Marketing and eventually Chief Evangelist. He didn't just sell software; he sold a vision where math wasn't a chore, but a superpower. He helped transform Maplesoft from a quirky academic startup into a global powerhouse in engineering modeling.

The Pivot to Hardware: The Quanser Years

After conquering the world of symbolic math, Lee set his sights on the physical world. He joined Quanser, another jewel in the Canadian tech crown, as their Chief Education Officer.

If Maplesoft was about the mind of the engineer, Quanser was about the hands. The company is famous for its rotary inverted pendulums and other control systems hardware used in labs around the world. Here, Lee’s mission was to modernize engineering education. He wasn't satisfied with students just learning theory; he wanted them to design autonomous drones and self-driving car systems. He became a vocal advocate for "modern mechatronics," pushing universities to ditch dusty textbooks in favor of dynamic, real-world design challenges.

The Sage of Innovation

Dr. Lee’s career is a testament to the "Waterloo model" of intellectual property: invent it here, build it here, sell it everywhere. His contributions were so significant that he was inducted into the Canadian Academy of Engineering, a distinct honor reserved for the country's most accomplished engineers.

Later in his career, he took his evangelism back to the classroom, serving as the Walter Booth Chair in Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship at McMaster University. He also maintained his ties to Waterloo as an Adjunct Professor, proving that you can take the boy out of the university, but you can't take the university out of the boy.

The Personal Touch

Perhaps the most charming part of Tom Lee’s history is his reason for staying in Waterloo. While he tells his colleagues it was for the booming tech sector, he admits the real reason was far more personal: he met his wife, Dr. Sharon, on campus.

From a hungry student trying to impress supervisors with computer algebra to a revered industry leader warning graduates about the ethical responsibilities of engineering (as he did in a notable convocation speech at York University), Dr. Tom Lee remains a quintessential Waterloo success story. He is the engineer who proved that if you ask the right questions—and use the right software—you can indeed build a better world.