Pearson studied mechanical engineering at the University of Glasgow, spending summer vacations working at a Rolls Royce factory in Hillington, Scotland, and a Tecumseh compressor factory in Michigan. His father, Stephen H. Pearson, was a manager at L Stearne & Co., a manufacturer of refrigeration machinery, and was responsible in 1948 for setting up the first production line in Europe to make hermetic compressors, which were made under license from Tecumseh.

After graduation in 1953, Pearson enrolled in the Royal College of Science and Technology in Glasgow to complete a thesis on valve design for reciprocating compressors. After completing a Ph.D., he was appointed scientific officer at the Torry Research Station in Aberdeen and spent three years developing techniques for freezing fish on trawlers to enhance quality and extend shelf life.

Pearson married Jean Lyall in 1959 and returned to Glasgow, joining L Stearne & Co. as chief engineer, dividing his work between designing products such as industrial compressors and heat exchangers and designing industrial refrigeration systems. He and two colleagues, Bert Campbell and Anthony Brown, founded Star Refrigeration in 1970.

According to Star Refrigeration, Pearson's ideas included new system configurations such as the low- pressure receiver, new control methods, tube ice makers, evaporative condensers, electronic logic controllers, high-efficiency water chillers, and novel freezing techniques. In the late 1980s, the phaseout of CFCs under the Montreal Protocol prompted him to combine his knowledge of organic chemistry with his understanding of compressors and create a range of refrigerants suited to the rigors of extreme temperature operation, the obituary said.

Pearson developed refrigerants that were licensed to major suppliers and marketed all over the world, the obituary said. He was awarded more than 100 patents during his career with Star. Pearson retired from full-time work in 2001.

In 2003, Pearson was awarded the Gustav Lorentzen Medal, dubbed the "Nobel Prize for Refrigeration," by the International Institute of Refrigeration. He was also a six-time winner of the Institute of Refrigeration's Lightfoot Medal for best technical paper of the year, and was the Institute president in 1987 and 1988.

Pearson had a strong Christian faith, his obituary said, and was an elder in the Church of Scotland. He had a firm belief that Christianity should be robust, invigorating and, above all, fun. He founded and led a Friday night youth club for teenagers and began an annual summer mission, Park Week, which attracted hundreds of young people.

He was also a craftsman and enjoyed repairing broken machines and gadgets and making new things out of old materials. He was particularly proud of a set of six butter knife handles carved from an old floorboard. He was also interested in biblical history, and wrote a fictional account of the life of Joab, the commander of King David’s army.

His obituary said that Pearson had no difficulty reconciling his scientific understanding of the world with his faith, and that he thought that science answers the “how” questions but faith addresses the “why."

In addition to his wife, Pearson is survived by two daughters and three sons, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.