Rod Craig Dies

Achieved Huge Success in Audio

The passing of Audio Telex Communications founder Rod Craig leaves a void because people who achieve so much are rare. In the 1970’s he along with Roy Morgan and Alan Clarke saw an opportunity to become the distributor for Telex products in Australia. Audio Telex Communications began with two small offices in Sydney and Melbourne and just a handful of dedicated staff.

At Rod’s funeral, caused by a virulent brain cancer that he battled over four years, the back story of what they did and how they did it came out.

‘They picked a market and a strategy and stuck to it like glue’, an insider told CX. ‘They would always look a decision through the prism of what the client would think. The client was always predominantly involved in installation and integration of audio.’

A packed church heard of a philosophy around a long view, totally at odds with the modern corporate practice of shirt term profits pursued by many enterprises. ‘Dad made friends and always celebrated people’, his son Stuart Craig, recently CEO of the Hills SVL subsidiary that was Audio Telex, said.

Audio Telex was acquired by Hills Industries around five years ago, allowing Rod and his partners to retire and reflect on the considerable success that more than thirty years of company growth had brought them. Audio Telex Communications quietly grew to become one of the largest and most profitable specialist audio distributors, with a very large customer base and offices in most states.

Hard work, commitment and decency were often repeated tributes amongst the crowd who sent Rod off. He is survived by his wife, three children, and eight grand children.