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Stefan Jos, entrepreneur supreme and the man who started it all. And he still keeps his feet firmly on the ground as a ‘boykie’.

Thrills with no spills was the order of the day for adults and kids alike.

It’s hard to believe that Matrix Vehicle Tracking celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. Hard because FleetWatch was there when the company was launched in January 1996 and it seems like only yesterday writes Patrick O’Leary. 

I was impressed the first time I met Stefan Jos, founder and CEO of Matrix. It wasn’t so much his tall stature and imposing presence that did it for me. Rather it was his solid and down-to-earth talk which came across as refreshing in an era when every fly-by-night in town was promising the earth with so-called vehicle tracking systems that were, best, pie-in-the-sky and at worst, just plain rotten pies. 

While others were telling me how easy it was to track vehicles, Jos was telling me how hard it was; how the road ahead would not be an easy one and how mistakes were certain to be made. On the surface, it seemed a lucrative business to be in what with vehicle hijacking and theft having sky-rocketed after 1994. Scratch under the surface, however - which is what Jos was doing – and it was fraught with difficulties. He was an entrepreneurial realist. 

To cut a 10-year story short, the fly-by- nights quickly disappeared while Matrix kept chipping away progressing through systems technology that, over the years, has advanced incredibly and done so much to help ‘people’ retain their assets. Matrix is a winner and it has made its customer base winners against crime. 

In line with the company’s slogan which states, "Our Customers are People not Vehicles’, the 10th anniversary celebration wasn’t held as a stuffy dinner-dance type function. Rather it was a ‘people’s delight’. As the photographs on this page show, families got together at Rand Airport and enjoyed a day of fun and camaraderie which included free helicopter rides, clowns for the kids and a variety of delicious food served from attractive food bars. It was a fitting celebration for 10 years of being the ‘People’s Company’. 

From all of us at FleetWatch, we congratulate Stefan Jos and his team at Matrix Vehicle Tracking on this milestone and wish them well over the next 10 years. This really is a 5-Star company.