Wilhelm J. Maier was born in Innsbruck, Austria, on January 17, 1893. Educated in Austria and Germany, he received an engineering diploma in 1914. He served in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 in the Tiroler Kaiserjger Regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Married in 1917, Maier and his first wife Melanie had a son (who would later die in the Second World War). He was divorced in 1928 and remarried the following year. He worked in Dresden for several years before joining camera-makers Voigtlnder & Sohn in 1926. He did optical work, which resulted in a patent being granted in 1929. In 1932 Maier joined I.G. Farben in Munich, later worked with an optical firm in Munich, and from 1938 to 1946 returned to work for Voigtlnder. He emigrated to Canada in 1949 and later that year joined the Department of Physics at the University of British Columbia. He was employed as a technician in that department until his retirement in 1961, building some excellent equipment and earning a reputation as a skilled technician. In 1951 he earned a second patent for a Kamera mit gekuppelten Entfernungsmesser (camera with coupled rangefinder). After his retirement, he moved to Galiano Island, where he lived with his wife Alice until he died in 1986.