- Joined
- Apr 9, 2012
- Messages
- 2,704
Dear All
One of the guys at Involve that has remained hidden in many ways but has always been there and supported me and Involve in so many ways Lindsay Champion died last week from a sudden advanced Lymphoma ant the age of 76. He was 100% normal a month ago and went to the doctor feeling ill and a week later died after requesting to cease treatment.
I have been best friends with Lindsay for 43 years and he provided the rigor and detail discipline to all my wacky ideas and bluster. I will be assisting at his funeral next Monday and I wrote the below summary, it will give you an idea of how important he has been to us and your favorite blue eyed monster.
Funerals are not the happiest events to attend but the reason I am here today and why I suspect most of you people are here is as a deep mark of respect to honor the life and achievement of Lindsay.
Lindsay was in many ways in today's language “the grey man”, defined by the urban dictionary as:
-The Art Of Blending In During Disaster. The gray man theory is a way of disappearing into the crowd so you can move unnoticed when disaster strikes. The idea is that you can conceal your preparedness by blending in with the crowd before or during an emergency.
I first met Lindsay way back in 1981 in the SECV when I was moved for a sabbatical into Plant Division in the transmission Development department, Lindsay was around 34 years old then and I was a young 23-year-old engineer. Being primarily an electronic engineer in many ways I was a round peg in a square hole in there, but it was a far friendlier and social environment from the System Performance and Control (SPACE) I had came from. I see a few people here today from back in those days! Lindsay was very much the square peg in the square hole and was a perfect fit for the detailed technical work, dealing with the contracts required and liaison with the field technical staff.
There was never any ego tripping, yelling, big noting or drama about Lindsay and if you did not watch closely as I did in secret, you would think there was not much happening. In reality, things were happening and as always in great detail and all sequenced with ultimate meticulous logic. He would have made the perfect state energy minister with actual real knowledge, judgement and qualification.
I left the SECV after 8 years of shear boredom and a desire in my stupidity and ignorance to start my first business – Power Conversions P/L in around 1987, Lindsay continued on in the soon to be divided and privatized SECV for at least another 10 years. At this stage Lindsay who already had a degree in electrical engineering, a diploma of electronic engineering (back when the diploma meant something) and was completing an MBA. We at Power Conversions P/L commissioned two business plans, one by a RMIT university business studies team and the other by Lindsay. The RMIT plan said “go left”, Lindsays plan said “go right”. The useless RMIT plan caused me to leave my first company when it was decided by my co directors to adopt it. After a year of operation and its failure was apparent, they soon jumped ship and adopted Lindsay's plan and survived till around 2010 when the company was acquired by another group. Yet again Lindsay's quite detail won over the empty waffle of the RMIT plan.
During these years when I was out and Lindsay was still in the SECV we retained close contact and chatted on many issues of work, politics and life in general. I remember on one day around 1990, I wandered into the SECV to visit Lindsay in his office, I looked pretty rough, long hair, unshaven, in ripped jeans in a very much suit and tie environment. Lindsay’s remark to me was – “It’s the wild man from Borneo”. Still appearances meant little to Lindsay and he was always open to chat, he always held a poker face but inside there was real interest in what happening.
We would often chat about the drop in educational standards in universities and the lack of quality in the younger engineers. Lindsay was more aware of this than I was and at one stage he was on the staff board in the SECV and was often the engineer assessing the suitability of candidates for various positions. It is only now I realize how true his views were as I recently conducted a series of interviews for one of my companies and I found “masters of Engineering” graduates unable to answer the most basic year one university questions.
Lindsay was part of the staff board who interviewed a friend of mine for an engineering position and one of the HR types naturaly asked the usual stuff like “what’s the highlight experience of your life”, “what restaurants and discotheques do you like attending” and “where will you be 5 year’s time”. My friend replied back to the staff board that they need not ask such irrelevant questions to him and they should stick to engineering. He later said to me that he did not think that he would get the position because of his reply. I asked who was on the staff board and mentioned Lindsay's name. I immediately said you will get the job – he did! I did a similar reply to a Telecom staff board and did not get a job, Lindsay was not on their board. To me, this is a window into the character of Lindsay, he is quiet but his lack of words can sometimes enhance its importance.
Sometime in the late 90’s Lindsay left what was left of the scatted remains of the SECV and joined my company Vass electronics P/L both as an investor and as our main manager and so began a long term business relationship. We did other people’s design, manufacture and sold our own brand of DC to AC inverters and electrostatic speakers.
Again, the staff interview process can be a window into Lindsay's character. Lindsay was interviewing for a production technician and the successful candidate was Geoff who later became our production manager. The interview was going well and at one stage Geoff asked Lindsay could he refer to him by his first name Lindsay. Lindsay replied NO you can call me Mr Champion in his usual dead pan manner. Lindsay was joking but Geoff took it literally and forever more referred to Lindsay as Mr Champion, and so did we! On occasions, if we were less formal it would get abbreviated to Mr C. In some ways it was retained by us all as a mark of respect but always with tongue in cheek.
From 2002 onwards Lindsay was always my business partner and/ or shareholder is a succession of companies, Winovate P/L, Immersion PLC, Reality Technologies, Reality IP, Involve Audio, P/L, Zenaji P/L, Zenaji IP. All except Immersion PLC are still active today. In all companies Lindsay acted either in direct management, investment, advisory and importantly as our first cut patents advisor and controller.
In many ways Lindsay and I were total opposites, I was and still am a hip shooter, poor documenter, hot headed, argumentative and a crash through or crash personality. In all the 43 years worked or chatted with Lindsay we never argued and we discussed everything logically, in the area of patents Lindsay helped harden and define my concepts. In many ways Lindsay was my reality check sounding board, if Lindsay approved it then I knew we had something that would not only work but it had commercial sensibility. On some patents such as “Keepit” he was at least a 50% contributor and inputted a huge time commitment.
Lindsay was always a calming influence even at the times of deep crisis, always diligent, no fuss and most importantly would never give up or fail to finish the task. Lindsay was totally trustworthy, I always said that you could go away for 10 years, give Lindsay your life savings, your house, your car and your daughter. When you came back your life savings would have got bank interest, your house would be renovated, your car would run smoothly and be polished and your daughter would be fine and finished university. I am unsure if I could say the same, especially regarding daughter with my other business partners!
I am sure we all agree Lindsay has greatly affected the lives of all in this room and no one negatively, that to me is the definition of living a good and rewarding life. He was the grey man but in a colorful way.
Farewell my friend you will live on in our memories.
One of the guys at Involve that has remained hidden in many ways but has always been there and supported me and Involve in so many ways Lindsay Champion died last week from a sudden advanced Lymphoma ant the age of 76. He was 100% normal a month ago and went to the doctor feeling ill and a week later died after requesting to cease treatment.
I have been best friends with Lindsay for 43 years and he provided the rigor and detail discipline to all my wacky ideas and bluster. I will be assisting at his funeral next Monday and I wrote the below summary, it will give you an idea of how important he has been to us and your favorite blue eyed monster.
Lindsay Champion – work/ business 1981 – 2023
Funerals are not the happiest events to attend but the reason I am here today and why I suspect most of you people are here is as a deep mark of respect to honor the life and achievement of Lindsay.
Lindsay was in many ways in today's language “the grey man”, defined by the urban dictionary as:
-The Art Of Blending In During Disaster. The gray man theory is a way of disappearing into the crowd so you can move unnoticed when disaster strikes. The idea is that you can conceal your preparedness by blending in with the crowd before or during an emergency.
I first met Lindsay way back in 1981 in the SECV when I was moved for a sabbatical into Plant Division in the transmission Development department, Lindsay was around 34 years old then and I was a young 23-year-old engineer. Being primarily an electronic engineer in many ways I was a round peg in a square hole in there, but it was a far friendlier and social environment from the System Performance and Control (SPACE) I had came from. I see a few people here today from back in those days! Lindsay was very much the square peg in the square hole and was a perfect fit for the detailed technical work, dealing with the contracts required and liaison with the field technical staff.
There was never any ego tripping, yelling, big noting or drama about Lindsay and if you did not watch closely as I did in secret, you would think there was not much happening. In reality, things were happening and as always in great detail and all sequenced with ultimate meticulous logic. He would have made the perfect state energy minister with actual real knowledge, judgement and qualification.
I left the SECV after 8 years of shear boredom and a desire in my stupidity and ignorance to start my first business – Power Conversions P/L in around 1987, Lindsay continued on in the soon to be divided and privatized SECV for at least another 10 years. At this stage Lindsay who already had a degree in electrical engineering, a diploma of electronic engineering (back when the diploma meant something) and was completing an MBA. We at Power Conversions P/L commissioned two business plans, one by a RMIT university business studies team and the other by Lindsay. The RMIT plan said “go left”, Lindsays plan said “go right”. The useless RMIT plan caused me to leave my first company when it was decided by my co directors to adopt it. After a year of operation and its failure was apparent, they soon jumped ship and adopted Lindsay's plan and survived till around 2010 when the company was acquired by another group. Yet again Lindsay's quite detail won over the empty waffle of the RMIT plan.
During these years when I was out and Lindsay was still in the SECV we retained close contact and chatted on many issues of work, politics and life in general. I remember on one day around 1990, I wandered into the SECV to visit Lindsay in his office, I looked pretty rough, long hair, unshaven, in ripped jeans in a very much suit and tie environment. Lindsay’s remark to me was – “It’s the wild man from Borneo”. Still appearances meant little to Lindsay and he was always open to chat, he always held a poker face but inside there was real interest in what happening.
We would often chat about the drop in educational standards in universities and the lack of quality in the younger engineers. Lindsay was more aware of this than I was and at one stage he was on the staff board in the SECV and was often the engineer assessing the suitability of candidates for various positions. It is only now I realize how true his views were as I recently conducted a series of interviews for one of my companies and I found “masters of Engineering” graduates unable to answer the most basic year one university questions.
Lindsay was part of the staff board who interviewed a friend of mine for an engineering position and one of the HR types naturaly asked the usual stuff like “what’s the highlight experience of your life”, “what restaurants and discotheques do you like attending” and “where will you be 5 year’s time”. My friend replied back to the staff board that they need not ask such irrelevant questions to him and they should stick to engineering. He later said to me that he did not think that he would get the position because of his reply. I asked who was on the staff board and mentioned Lindsay's name. I immediately said you will get the job – he did! I did a similar reply to a Telecom staff board and did not get a job, Lindsay was not on their board. To me, this is a window into the character of Lindsay, he is quiet but his lack of words can sometimes enhance its importance.
Sometime in the late 90’s Lindsay left what was left of the scatted remains of the SECV and joined my company Vass electronics P/L both as an investor and as our main manager and so began a long term business relationship. We did other people’s design, manufacture and sold our own brand of DC to AC inverters and electrostatic speakers.
Again, the staff interview process can be a window into Lindsay's character. Lindsay was interviewing for a production technician and the successful candidate was Geoff who later became our production manager. The interview was going well and at one stage Geoff asked Lindsay could he refer to him by his first name Lindsay. Lindsay replied NO you can call me Mr Champion in his usual dead pan manner. Lindsay was joking but Geoff took it literally and forever more referred to Lindsay as Mr Champion, and so did we! On occasions, if we were less formal it would get abbreviated to Mr C. In some ways it was retained by us all as a mark of respect but always with tongue in cheek.
From 2002 onwards Lindsay was always my business partner and/ or shareholder is a succession of companies, Winovate P/L, Immersion PLC, Reality Technologies, Reality IP, Involve Audio, P/L, Zenaji P/L, Zenaji IP. All except Immersion PLC are still active today. In all companies Lindsay acted either in direct management, investment, advisory and importantly as our first cut patents advisor and controller.
In many ways Lindsay and I were total opposites, I was and still am a hip shooter, poor documenter, hot headed, argumentative and a crash through or crash personality. In all the 43 years worked or chatted with Lindsay we never argued and we discussed everything logically, in the area of patents Lindsay helped harden and define my concepts. In many ways Lindsay was my reality check sounding board, if Lindsay approved it then I knew we had something that would not only work but it had commercial sensibility. On some patents such as “Keepit” he was at least a 50% contributor and inputted a huge time commitment.
Lindsay was always a calming influence even at the times of deep crisis, always diligent, no fuss and most importantly would never give up or fail to finish the task. Lindsay was totally trustworthy, I always said that you could go away for 10 years, give Lindsay your life savings, your house, your car and your daughter. When you came back your life savings would have got bank interest, your house would be renovated, your car would run smoothly and be polished and your daughter would be fine and finished university. I am unsure if I could say the same, especially regarding daughter with my other business partners!
I am sure we all agree Lindsay has greatly affected the lives of all in this room and no one negatively, that to me is the definition of living a good and rewarding life. He was the grey man but in a colorful way.
Farewell my friend you will live on in our memories.
Attachments
Last edited:
