CO-FOUNDER of Inner Range and CSD Group, Vin Lopes, has retired after its acquisition by Anixter last month, with a farewell ceremony conducted at the company’s Melbourne office recently.
Lopes, David Baughan, Alan Winch and Doug Fraser set up Inner Range in 1988 and the Concept 2000 alarm and access control panel was released to market in 1989, quickly establishing itself as arguably the most popular controller of its type ever manufactured in Australia. Production of the Concept 2000 continued for 21 years.
Over 3 decades, Lopes and the Inner Range team released Concept 3000, Concept 4000, as well as software solutions and communications modules. CSD was established as an exclusive distributor for Inner Range and other products in 2008 and Inner Range Integriti hit the market in 2012, Inception and Infinity Class 5 arrived in 2016 and there’s been much, much more besides.
Thanks to the success of the Inner Range product suite and clever management of CSD, by the time of the acquisition by Anixter, Inner Range CSD Group was the second largest distributor of electronic security solutions in Australia.
It’s difficult to encapsulate the achievements of an individual over decades. Lopes brought to market a combination of personal integrity, business sense, people skill, technical know-how, and a capacity for synthesis not seen before and unlikely to be seen again.
