Former University of Technology (UTech), Jamaica President Dr Alfred Sangster is dead.

The 85-year-old Sangster reportedly died from natural causes.

Sangster, who attended Munro College in St Elizabeth from 1940 to 1947, achieved good scholastic and sporting accomplishments, and represented Jamaica in hockey, though he was more remembered for exploits in tennis and track and field.

A citation, when he was inducted in the Munro College Hall of Fame, pointed out that Sangster did science at Queens University in Belfast, Ireland, where he gained a first-class honours BSc in chemistry. In 1958 he obtained his PhD in organic chemistry.

He returned to Jamaica and was assistant lecturer in chemistry, then senior lecturer and supervisor of research projects between 1952 and 1970 at The University of the West Indies.

But it was at what then the College of Arts, Science, and Technology (CAST), which morphed into UTech, that Sangster came to national profile.

He went from vice-dean of evening students to president and for a while his name became synonymous with the institution.

Sangster was a founding father and chairman of the watchdog group Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections, (CAFFE), and served on several State and private sector boards.

He received the Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander (CD) in 1982, and the Order of Jamaica (OJ) in 1995.

In 1996, the UTech auditorium was named in his honour.