About Us

Erron brings over four decades of expertise in software engineering, enterprise architecture and applied energy technology, with deep knowledge in systems analysis, electronics and rapid prototyping.

He specialises in taking first principles ideas through to production-ready solutions, and designed and built three successive hydrogen energy prototypes between 2008 and 2015.

He maintained mission critical banking infrastructure software and upgraded the national scanning infrastructure for Bankwest, previously known as the Rural and Industries Bank of Western Australia, and the R&I Bank.

He also built and maintained WorkflowPoint, a comprehensive manufacturing, maintenance, repair and operations enterprise level software platform.

WorkflowPoint is deployed nationally and in operation since 2014.

Erron also designed and built PrimeKey CRM, an immensely powerful enterprise grade project and task management software solution, and is a controls and documentation platform suited to specialist manufacturing processes such as MVP Building and Documentation.

PrimeKey CRM is fully independent of all major software companies.

WorkflowPoint has been used across a national multi-branch network, including Novus Glass and RACWA, processing more than 200,000 jobs and giving him practical experience in real-time systems, telematics, uptime, inventory and end-to-end operational control.

PrimeKey CRM can support HyGen4’s mass production and maintenance operations of the developed product.

Community

A 6th generation Australian, Erron is descended from William Criddle, who arrived from Kent in the Swan River Colony in 1829 as an indentured servant and later became a Toodyay builder, carpenter and farmer.

In 1842 William built the Toodyay Police Barracks, the first government buildings in that district, before the family settled on the Greenough Flats and in the Champion Bay country around Geraldton, where they farmed, had 14 children, and built and kept inns.

The family line also connects to Sir David Brand, Western Australia's longest serving Premier, through Susan Criddle, daughter of William and Elizabeth.

Erron’s paternal grandfather, Neil Criddle, served at Maralinga South Australia during the atomic testing and died of leukemia.

Erron’s maternal grandfather, Mirko Yuryevich, arrived in Australia in 1936, married a compatriot, and worked in the gold mines of Wiluna, Gwalia and Kalgoorlie.

His maternal uncle "Ronnie" Ron Yuryevich AM RFD, served on the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder council from 1988 to 2015, and was Mayor in two stints: 1992–1999 and 2003–2016. He was a Member of the Western Australian Local Government State Council, the Local Government Advisory Board, and held positions at the Goldfields-Esperance Development Commission.

Between 2011 and 2015, Ron led a five-commissioner team for the newly merged City of Greater Geraldton during the transition period. He has been an owner operator of a Kalgoorlie based air conditioning company.

Erron's father, Ian Criddle, known to everyone as 'Weenie', was born in Geraldton in 1939 and was a farmer. He had a contract to cart ammonia to the farmers, a dangerous gas. One day, a valve was left open on the main tank in Webberton and he was called in to deal with it. He crawled under the gas cloud to shut the valve and saved lives.

Ian was also unquestionably one of Geraldton’s greatest sportsman, playing tennis, cricket, football, golf, darts and bowls, becoming a life member of Towns Cricket Club after about 3,500 runs and 600 wickets.

Erron continued that local sporting line, playing for Rovers until 1982, participating in state badminton trials, and playing hockey and basketball while attending Geraldton Senior High School.

During his high school years, he also set up a workbench in his bedroom, where he disassembled various electronics devices, including high voltage televisions, and then conducted “apparently scary” electronics tests that included explosions, which formed the basis for his electronics knowledge.

He is now carrying the same Criddle sense of community and pioneering instinct into HyGen4, so technologies can be built and operated as local working assets.

Christopher has designed, managed, built, worked on and delivered complex mission critical systems and mega construction projects, with deep knowledge in mechanical and electrical engineering, refrigeration, ammonia, and specialisation in energy flow, power, heat and cooling.

With a trade in refrigeration fitting with an electrical license, and tertiary qualifications, he has operated his own mechanical and electrical business since 1986, and has led strategy, planning, delivery, commissioning and recovery on remote, live and high value infrastructure and mine sites.

He has applied principles of psychrometrics, pressure enthalpy, thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, with expertise in complex mechanical, electrical and controls, motors, fans, pumps, hydraulics, fire, security, data and life safety & escape systems, to design and deliver building services and industrial systems, ventilation, cooling, water, and major construction projects.

Leveraging technical expertise against systemic problems, he engineered solutions to minimise ozone layer depletion, stop cooling tower chemicals entering waterways, build custom chillers so regional dialysis patients can stay home, and design zero water cooling for remote data centres.

In 1986 before the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was adopted in 1987 by all 197 UN member states and the European Union, he designed a single plant multiple temperature low refrigerant volume high COP system, which is now the standard 40 years later.

His project record includes upgrading large, occupied office buildings, live brownfield mine site substations, network water pump stations, installing low yield riverbed desalination and mine site water extraction systems, LNG plant logistics, inspections for commissioning and start up of NPI infrastructure, hospital and commercial tower projects, and independent system redesigns.

Community

A 6th generation Australian, Christopher is descended from Johannes Strauss and Anna Kraehe, German carpenters and builders who sailed on the Cesar Godeffroy and landed at Grafton NSW on the Clarence River in March 1856, founding a building enterprise that included a local Alderman.

Later generations took those construction skills West to the goldfields, working on mines, shafts and batteries, getting married, raising children and living life throughout regional Western Australia, including Wiluna, Leonora, Beria and the Lancefield gold mine, as business owners, miners, syndicate partners, builders and managers, before settling in the Perth metropolitan area.

His paternal grandfather, Dideric Strauss, was a blacksmith, farrier and operated stables, and built and fixed horse drawn carriages; his grandmother Muriel operated a dry cleaners, with family ties through the Atkins, Doust and Muir lines to the South West and Wheatbelt, where families of up to 14 children were farmers and bricklayers, built businesses and community life.

His maternal grandfather, Harry Strickland, left school at 13 to ride as a jockey, then worked North as a shed hand, shearer, barman and Special Constable, later leasing hotels in Carnarvon, planting bananas on the Gascoyne, serving on the Carnarvon Road Board, and sitting in the State Legislative Council as Minister for the North West, Supply, Shipping and Railways.

His father, Ray Strauss, played cricket and hockey for Western Australia and Australia. The University of Western Australia Cricket Club (UCC) was established in 1913, and its most prominent record holding player is Ray Strauss, who took 698 First Grade wickets between 1946 and 1965.

Ray spent more than forty years as a Public Works Department architect on schools and hospitals across the State.

His mother Maureen, cousin of Shirley Strickland, helped develop WA sport through the State government department Youth Sport and Recreation and Gymnastics WA over many years, as a life member, and served as a Claremont local town councillor and Deputy Mayor.

As a kid, he worked in the shearing shed on his Aunty's farm in Kulin, worked on his Grandparent's orchard and garden in Maddington, worked on air conditioning the supermarket in Meekatharra, and has worked on a wide variety of refrigeration and air conditioning plants across the country.

Through the 1980s, Christopher continued high performance in sport at state, national and world championship level, relief lectured at TAFE from first year apprentices to advanced diploma students, created the Refrigerant Control Board proposal leading to RACIRB (state) then ARCtick (national) licensing systems, and was the founding organiser of his trade for Workskills in WA.

That same mix of a strong sense of regional community and local ability, commitment to families and activities, work in energy flow and project delivery, is now being applied to HyGen4’s technology and the community at large.