Leaders of the pack

InTech, Aug 2003 by Strothman, Jim

Dick Caro and Tom Phinney As chairman of ISA SP50 and IEC fieldbus standards committees, Caro played a major role driving fieldbus standards and the evolution to industrial Ethernet. Caro, a widely recognized networking consultant, has worked with ARC Advisory Group, Arthur D. Little, ModComp, and the Foxboro Company. In 1983, he created the first Ethernet-based process control system for Autech Data Systems. A twenty-eight-year Honeywell veteran, Phinney is currently convenor of the two active IEC fieldbus standards working groups and is editor for the IEC 61158-3 data link layers standards and the corresponding ISA SP50 committee standard.

John Berra The president of Emerson Process Management and Emerson executive vice president received ISA's "Life Achievement Award" at ISA 2002 in recognition of long-term dedication and contributions to the instrumentation, systems, and automation community. As of 2001, only seven people had received the honor, which was first given in 1981. Berra, who began his career as an end user at Monsanto Co., played a major role in the development of three major manufacturing communications protocols-HART, Foundation Fieldbus, and OPC

Richard Rimbach Considered by many to be the father of ISA, Rimbach served as ISA's first executive director. In January 1928, he published the first issue of Instruments magazine, which, in effect, gave birth to instrumentation and control as a distinct discipline.

Glenn F. Harvey ISA executive director for thirty-two years, Harvey oversaw ISA's direction and saw the focus shift from valves and other electrical, mechanical, and pneumatic instruments, to microprocessors and PCs to a solutions-based, software-driven discipline. Under his leadership, ISA grew from a few thousand to a peak of more than 60,000 members during the 1990s.

ENTREPRENEURS

C. William Siemens and E. Werner Siemens The German inventor brothers set up shop in London in 1844. In 1866, Werner Siemens invented the first dynamo.

Edward Brown founded Brown Instrument Co. in the mid-1800s, just before the Civil War. Many considered it to be the first known U.S. maker of process instruments. Edward Brown invented and produced the first pyrometer to measure temperature; it was the first commercial industrial instrument. (Honeywell acquired Brown in 1934.)

George Taylor In 1851, at the young age of 19, Taylor and David Kendall pooled their resources to form what eventually became Taylor Instrument Co. Their first products were a few tin-case and wood-case thermometers and mercury barometers. In 1866, George's brother Frank joined the business. The Taylor brothers soon recognized the need for thermometers for industrial processes, and began research and development about 1887.

Mark C. Honeywell The founder of Honeywell Heating Specialty Co. in 1906 built a hot-water system for homes. Giant Honeywell actually traces its roots, however, to 1885, when Albert M. Butz filed his first temperature-control patent. He formed the Butz Thermo-Electric Regulator Co., which reorganized around entrepreneur William R. Sweatt in 1893. That company merged with Sweatt's Minneapolis Heat Regulator Co. in 1913. Honeywell then acquired that company.