Highways News is sad to report that one of the most likeable people in the ITS industry, Andy Kristoffy, has died of cancer. His family was with him at his bedside.
He was probably best known for a decade and a half working with German traffic information software company GEWI, where he was regularly seen at conferences and exhibitions around the world.
Andy was highly technical and also a businessman, having a BSc in Computer Systems Engineering at the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from the Tanaka Business School, Imperial College, London.
Having grown up in North America, Andy moved to the UK to do a year of his degree in Manchester and settled here after graduating. While at Imperial he was awarded the Ford Motor Prize in Management for a marketing project of practical use to the automotive industry, and afterwards served as the President of the school’s alumni association.
He was introduced to the traffic information industry in 1997 as Business Projects Manager at the AA where he met GEWI when buying its TIC Software for the UK’s first demonstrator of RDS-TMC traffic information broadcasting.
He worked with the long chain of organisations required to build and maintain navigation-quality traffic information services, including: TrafficMaster, NAVTEQ, BMW, Daimler-Chrysler, Vodafone, TRL and the Highways Agency, as well as various radio broadcasters, and a series of European automobile clubs and navigation device manufacturers.
His UK GEWI colleague Danny Woolard paid tribute saying, “I first met Andy in 1997, working together with the AA on the UK’s RDS-TMC implementation. Always a pleasure to be with, both from a working point of view and socially. Andy and I worked again closely over the past few years with GEWI. Meetings were always a pleasure as Andy had moved to Cornwall around ten years prior and we used to meet in his local town of St Agnes. Very sad news for all of us at GEWI, in a year that has been challenging for us all. Our thoughts are with Andy’s wife and family right now.”
Highways News co-owner Paul Hutton commented, “This is such sad news about someone who has gone far too young. I first worked with Andy on the Travel Information Highway project in the early 2000s, where we spent many a fun day in a business centre in Reading plotting the marketing and communications strategy for the project. Andy was always so good to see and I enjoyed catching up with him at exhibitions around the world. He was always in demand to chat to people and you always felt better having seen him. 2020 has been such an awful year, and I have an extra strong feeling of sadness on hearing this news.”
Another of Andy’s TIH colleagues Nabil Abou-Rahme of Bentley Systems added, “I was sad to hear news of Andy’s death and immediately recalled the fun days of working together on the business case for the pioneering Travel Information Highway. Andy was a great mentor to me in the marketing and strategy aspects of our work, but also friendly, patient, and a good role model for putting family first. I have some empathy with their loss and encourage them to feel proud about the person they’ve lost while taking time out to grieve well.”
(Picture – Go24 Group)
