From the press release this morning: 

The Board of Directors of ABB Ltd. announced today that Joseph M. Hogan has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the ABB Group. Hogan is currently CEO of GE Healthcare, the global leader in medical diagnostic technology and biosciences, and is a member of the GE Senior Executive Council. He will join ABB on September 1, 2008. Michel Demaré, ABB’s Chief Financial Officer, who has held the CEO position on an ad-interim basis since February 13, 2008, will continue to serve as ABB’s CFO.

“Following our extensive search over the past months, the Board of Directors is very pleased with Joseph’s decision to take on this exciting role. His proven international track record as a highly successful leader at one of the world’s most respected technology companies will be a great contribution to the Company as we continue to focus the organization on excellence in everything we do,” said Hubertus von Gruenberg, ABB’s Chairman.

“The Board and I would also like to thank Michel Demaré for his many contributions to ABB in this transitional period. We are very pleased with the direction of the Company under Demaré’s guidance,” von Gruenberg said.

“I am honored to become ABB’s CEO,” Hogan said. “I am deeply committed to ABB’s drive to increase energy efficiency and industrial productivity for its customers. I look forward to leading the Company to the next stage of its development and success together with the team at ABB.”

Hogan has a long and distinguished career at GE, spanning 23 years and a wide range of challenging positions. He led GE Medical Systems and then GE Healthcare from November 2000, during which time he grew the business by $11 billion. Prior to this, he served as President and CEO of GE Fanuc Automation North America, Inc., a global supplier of industrial controls systems and a joint venture between GE and FANUC of Japan. Previously, he held a number of key positions in sales, marketing and product development at GE Plastics. Hogan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Geneva College and an MBA from Robert Morris University, both in the U.S.

Joseph Hogan is 51 and holds U.S. citizenship.

(For you newsreader folks, I have removed the original post by request):

Here is a link to the tribute at Prosoft: http://www.prosoft-technology.com/

and another link to a tribute page: http://www.prosoft-technology.com/dougsharratt/ (thanks to a reader for bringing that to my attention)

http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/07/smallplanecrashatsunriver.html

http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080717/NEWS0107/807170395/1041&nav_category=&template=emailto

On behalf of Control, and I am sure the rest of the automation industry, I want to say how sorry I am at this news. Doug was a terrific guy, and he will truly be missed. Our hearts go out to his family, friends, and the team members at ProSoft.

 Walt Boyes

I’ve been interested in “edge device protection” for about six or seven years now, ever since Eric Byres showed me the need for something that eventually became his Tofino Device (now available from MTL).

Now I’ve received a press release and sort of article from Innominate, a division of Phoenix Contact. This talks about another “edge device firewall” called Innominate M-Guard.

Here’s what Innominate says:

IT Security in Production Security for Industrial Ethernet Networks Based on Accepted Standards   Machinery and production systems are increasingly managed over the worldwide Internet via Ethernet. Security is obviously of critical importance throughout the network. But Enterprise networking and common network interfaces are potentially more vulnerable than ever. There is, however, an economic solution capable of providing effective protection devices for a distributed architecture. –Torsten Rössel

Corporate firewalls provide access security against Internet attacks from the outside world. But the most harmful programs, capable of paralyzing automation systems, are often introduced internally. The average damage caused by viruses or worms is around €1.5 million (USD $2.4 million), as reported by the PA Consulting Group in a highly respected report. Defeating such threats must be part of the security strategy of every automated production enterprise. CERT Institute registered incidents and vulnerabilities since the year 2000 are growing at 50-100% per year.

Major Trends in Automation

The success of the programmable logic controller (PLC) began in the 1980’s. A central control panel previously read the signals from hundreds of sensors, actuators and other control devices. (Before PLCs, logic was designed with banks of relays within the panel.) The disadvantage was long cable runs from the equipment to the panel. This has far reaching practical consequences, even in today’s networks, when up to 80% of the failures of automation systems occur as installation issues and cable backbone problems. At the beginning of the 1990’s, established fieldbus systems, such as Interbus, improved this problem. I/O cards and other peripheral devices can be installed in a decentralized network along a single cable link. This provides several advantages. The decentralized approach allows for the review of individual plant components. Errors are easier to locate and can be immediately fixed because a single cable can be checked quickly for damage and replaced. This is equivalent to the replacement of patch cords used in the distributed architecture of an Ethernet network.   Security Issues Are Neglected

It is common in Ethernet-based production networks to find that security aspects are given far too little consideration. Given the growing connectivity between production and office networks, it is imperative that potential interactions, security consequences, and maintenance costs be considered. As with the development of industrial switches, evaluating the equipment requirements for automation include determination of durability, long life, production availability, ease of use, assembly, installation and administration.   Particularities of Industrial Networks

The consequences of production interruption in the Industrial sector are much more serious than failures within the office network. Firewalls can protect corporate networks from most external intruders. External service technicians have access, however, and employees and visiting consultants with laptops can inadvertently (or deliberately) introduce malicious software behind the external firewall. The so-called security cordon of firewalls at border crossings between departments often does not provide adequate protection. Effective decentralized approaches are required - referred to as “Defense in Depth” and “Endpoint Security” in the literature - as are corresponding systems for the security of endpoint devices. In principle, architectures with small, distributed security systems are preferred.

Security with Security Appliances

For the protection of individual production cells, the Innominate mGuard™ security devices are used in a decentralized, distributed architecture. These security appliances have been designed specifically for use in industrial environments. They combine the characteristics of a “stateful inspection firewall” (incoming and outgoing data packets are monitored and eventually blocked based on predefined rules) with options for encrypted, authenticated communication via Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections. High availability is provided through router redundancy. Their specific suitability for industrial applications lies in the fulfillment of relevant industrial standards and the ability to integrate with industrial controls, such as controllers, IPCs, Panel PCs, machinery and plant networks.

The mGuard™ firewall acts as a self-contained system in the network and can protect a production cell or a single automated device. The advantage lies in this protection being completely non-reactive to the protected system(s) thanks to Innominate’s patented “stealth mode firewall” principle. Updates to the security device can be made without interfering with the protected system itself. Existing systems can thus be easily retrofitted. In router mode, with the Network Address Translation (NAT) function, the devices can also provide secure connectivity of numerous production cells with the same internal address space to an overall network.   Integrated Protection for the PC Industry

mGuard PCI™ provides integrated firewall protection for PCs and industrial robots, which are often controlled via standard PC-based systems. The compact firewall appliance has a PCI card format and is powered over the PCI bus of the host system. mGuard PCI™ can be used similar to all mGuard systems, without data communication via the PCI bus, completely transparent to the operating system. Alternatively, mGuard PCI™ with a driver can perform as a network interface card and firewall at the same time.

Distributed Security Architecture

In a 2006 study, industrial network planners Roewaplan AG in Germany compared the total cost of distributed and centralized security architectures. In a centralized approach, production system wiring leads to high initial investment costs. The concentration of data terminals in the production area is usually low, so that the utilization of switch and router modules for a centralized architecture is not high enough to provide a cost-effective solution.

Management Solutions

Early mGuard™ users were concerned about the costs of commissioning, configuration and maintenance of the network components. But the cost is not linear, and decreases per device as the number of security devices rises, thanks to a central device management solution. The Innominate Device Manager™ (IDM) software provides sophisticated templates, automated inheritance of configuration properties, and an integrated Certificate Authority to produce VPN certificates with a high degree of automation in the configuration and updating of individual devices. With a push-pull mechanism, a central management console supplies needed information to the decentralized components.

Conclusion

Machinery and production systems today are being interconnected to the outside world via Ethernet-based networks. This ensures high flexibility and cost savings. The traditional network interfaces are vulnerable, however, as much as corporate network access over the Internet can be. Innominate offers an economic solution to provide decentralized security with effective protection devices arranged in a distributed architecture. Yet this advanced security infrastructure can be administered and maintained from a central console, thus adding no higher administrative burden – and it is available today. Further information can be found at www.innominate.com .

After giving a briefing last Thursday to one of the world’s largest automation companies about the future trends in automation, I went and saw one, and laid hands on it.

There is a coming revolution in HMI. Currently, HMI are designed to the preferences of us “digital immigrants”– we were analog, and then we were digital before digital was cool, but digital is still our second language, and we have funny accents. Compared, that is, to our children and professional successors. They are “digital natives” and they learn differently, interact with tools differently, and from a very early age, they operate human machine interfaces very differently.

We use keyboards, ten-key pads, mice and display screens.

 They use Wii paddles, game pads, joysticks, and thumb keyboards.

We learn from the basics to the more sophisticated.

They learn in a more experiential way, taught by video gaming techniques. If they need to find out how to do a particular thing, they study that and learn it. Their learning mode is deeper than ours, but less systematic.

And what does this mean for the future of automation?

What it means is that the way we bring people into the profession has to change. The way we teach new operators needs to be much more experiential. The way we use engineers must be more high level, and all of us have to become fluent with the new forms of human machine interface.

I went to visit an interesting client of Jerry Gulley’s on Friday. Jerry was one of the founders of Symbol Technologies, and has been in the automation game a long time. So when he said he had something to show me, I made time to go.

I’m glad I did. What I had been talking about the day before was right in front of me.

His client has two faces. The hardware end is called Parallel Robotic Systems. They make precision positioning systems for lots of different applications. They can provide precision movement in six or seven axes, as you can see by looking at the video here.

They’ve produced more than just the device. I described the breakthrough of ISA88 to the chief developer at Parallel Robotics, Rob Peterson, as the insight to separate the application and the recipe from the equipment. Parallel Robotics has done just that…by producing a tool-set in software for applying this set of motion devices to a whole variety of different applications… the difference between using OPC-UA and writing custom APIs for everything is another good example of PRSCO’s breakthrough.

Now how do I get back to human machine interface?

Well, the other face of Jerry’s client is called Holo-Dek. Holo-Dek is a very high end gaming parlor that will be rolling out all over the country, they hope, soon.

What does Parallel Robotics have in common with Holo-Dek? Motion, that’s what.

In the back, behind the typical gaming parlor rooms, and behind the Wii bowling alley that they’ve set up for senior citizen bowling on Friday mornings every week, is the lab where they’re designing full motion simulators for video gaming.

They had a 180-degree screen set up with a 5-point Recaro-clone chair mounted on top of a Parallel Robotics hexapodal motion table. They were set up to fly Microsoft Flight Simulator FX, and it was amazingly lifelike and real, and was set up so that spectators could also watch…sort of like “To Fly” in IMAX.

These are automation people building custom HMIs for gaming. Wait until that comes all the way around and they are automation people building custom HMIs for automation.

“Will operators want the motion and noise we build into the Flight Simulator?” Gulley asked me. “Do they need it or will they want it?”

I told him to ask the gamers if they were working in a process plant, would they want to be able to fly around the plant looking at things, interact as an avatar like Halo or GTA, or in a MMRPG (you are a digital immigrant if you don’t immediately recognize that acronym…Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game), or be able to pull up metadata by “reaching out and touching” a device in virtual reality.

He said that based on their interviews, the gamers would want all of that…and that he believed that it would make them better and more efficient and observant operators if that’s the HMI they were using.

So, all you digital immigrants, how’s your thumbs?

From Dick Morley:

FROM A READER

Clash of the Mindsets: How Indian And Western Engineers View the World Differently Posted by Navi Radjou on July 1, 2008 11:36 AM

Western multinationals like GE, Microsoft, Siemens, and Google are shifting their R&D to India (read it here), eager to tap into its vast reservoir of creative engineers and scientists. These multinationals are either building captive R&D centers in India, or contracting out their R&D work to India-based service providers like Wipro, which employs over 10,000 R&D experts. For followers of global business, this is not a surprising development.

But the reverse trend is also happening: Indian companies with global ambitions are tapping into highly-specialized R&D talent only available (thus far) in the West (read it here). For instance, India’s top utility vehicle maker, Mahindra & Mahindra, just acquired renowned Italian auto design house GRD. And Suzlon Energy, the world’s fifth largest wind turbine manufacturer, conducts most of its R&D work in Germany and Netherlands.

I recently asked senior execs at both Western and Indian multinationals with R&D operations across US, Europe, and India what challenges they face in managing their firms’ transnational innovation networks (read it here). They pointed out that the biggest hurdle is socio-cultural, as Indian engineers think and act completely differently than their Western colleagues. The former, growing up in a red-hot economy, are animated by a “growth mindset” whereas the latter, operating in mature economies, are stuck in a “settled mindset.” These two opposite approaches clash when they are asked to collaborate on a R&D project. Why? Because Indian and Western engineers completely differ in their:

1) Reasoning. Unlike Western engineers, who reason with a predicate logic (a statement is either true (1) or false (0)), Indian engineers solve problems using a fuzzy logic (the degree of truth of a statement can range anywhere between 0 and 1). Both reasoning styles have their own merit. In the exploratory stage of product development, Indian engineers’ creativity and flexibility help solve ambiguous technical problems with imprecise data. But Western engineers’ quest for predictability brings stability to the development process later as it gets closer to commercialization. One Indian exec who manages a multinational R&D team joked he felt like a diplomat as he must constantly broker peace between uncertainty-loathing Western engineers and ambiguity-loving Indian scientists!

2) Problem-solving. Given their average age (mid-20s), Indian engineers belong to the Generation Y (read) , or the Millennials, who learn through hands-on experiments (think video-games) and peer-to-peer interactions (instant messaging anyone?). When solving a problem, these grown-up “kids” harness the multiplicative power of social networking (read) tools to experiment with multiple solutions simultaneously, and select the optimal one based on peer input. You can call this problem-solving approach “Collaborative Darwinism.” By contrast, Western engineers, many in their 30s/40s/50s, theoretically weigh the pros and cons of every single solution before even trying it, and feel too proud to ask for help when stuck solving a problem. It’s the “ostrich-style” problem-solving.

3) Market expectations. It’s hard for Western engineers living in rich economies with advanced infrastructure to design products for use by customers in developing economies with poor roads and unreliable electrical and water supply. But that’s second nature for Indian engineers in Bangalore, with its ever-congested roads and frequent power cuts. As a US tech multinational’s exec eloquently puts it: “Western engineers’ product ideas are shaped by laws of abundance whereas Eastern engineers’ inventions are motivated by the rules of scarcity. Our Silicon Valley engineers don’t even know what “low-cost” product means. And they would have never conceived, let alone marketed, a telecom router with embedded back-up power-supply, as our India team did, to cope with India’s constant power shortage.” Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

As India integrates its engineering and scientific talent into global innovation networks, Western and Indian multinationals need culturally-savvy managers adept at harmonizing and synergizing the opposing mindsets in their transnational R&D teams. It’s time for B-Schools in the West (and in India) to start teaching a course titled “Managing cross-cultural innovation networks.” I am sure it will be a hit.

From Nick Belardes, formerly an automation guy, now a heap big television managing editor, and aspiring author of fiction:

Just letting you know I’ll be reading on Sunday, July 13

at the Virgin Megastore in Hollwood, Calif.

(on Hollywood and Highland).

The event is called the Rock N Readand is put on byStephanie Kuehnert and Alexa Young, two hot authorsnew to the writing world.You can read my ABC23 article that’s currently featured

in the ‘Spotlight’ section of www.turnto23.comI piggybacked it on two articles on cnn.com this week. Or just click here on “Author Of New MTV Novel Fuses Music, Literature.”

The event is from 3 - 6 pm and also features twoBakersfield area bands: Dirty Spanglish and Norfolk.

Best,

Nick Belardes Managing Editor, ABC23 (KERO)

www.nlbelardes.com

Hope the reading went great, Nick!

This past week, I paid a visit to my friend Nels Tyring and his wife Joan in Stratham, New Hampshire. Nels has shared on his blog the fact that he is battling cancer, and he’s shared his real feelings on the subject.

Nels is one of the titans who helped to create what we do—who defined what an automation professional is and does. He is commonly considered the father of the discipline of control system integration, and is one of the founders of the CSIA, the Control System Integrators Association.

He is also a longtime ISA advocate, as well as a successful system integrator. His company, TVC Systems, is being highly competently run by his daughter Linda while her father recovers from the bouts of radiation and chemotherapy he’s been undergoing.

Less well known is the fact that Joan Tyring is also undergoing cancer treatment. “I bet this isn’t exactly the sort of togetherness you signed up for over 50 years ago,” I said to her, and she laughed.

John F. Kennedy put his name on a book called “Profiles in Courage” which won the Pulitzer Prize. It later turned out that one of his staffers, Theodore Sorenson, had actually ghostwritten the book.

The story of Nels and Joan is a true profile in courage. They are facing this challenge with terrific attitudes.

“I’m actually getting kind of excited,” Nels said to me, “because I’m going to get to find out what happens next.”

I hope that when I am 77 and fighting for my life, I can say that, and mean it, as Nels did.

So what are we going to do with our profession when the titans like Nels are gone? Many of the great names in automation and control are in their 70s now, and won’t be with us forever.

Who do we have who can continue to define and create the profession of automation professional?

Opto 22 sent me this thought-provoking press release. Opto has twigged to the blending of entertainment and education that especially younger automation professionals appear to be expecting. Just a quick look on YouTube gets us this interesting set of benchmarks. Searching on “industrial automation” gets 389 videos. Searching on “sensors” gets 13,600!! videos. “Process control” gets you 1860 videos.

And, of course, ControlGlobal.com’s Process Automation Media Network has been producing multimedia education and editorial content since 2005.

Many of these videos are produced by individuals sharing knowledge. Others are produced by forward thinking companies. Emerson, National Instruments, and Opto22 all have videos that inform and educate and are on YouTube. Many of these videos are class lectures. Some are company-produced attempts to preserve and disseminate the institutional knowledge that is leaving us as our Baby Boomer contingent retires.

If you aren’t doing things like this, as an end-user company or a vendor company, write me and tell me why not. If you ARE, write me and give me URLs, and tell me what your results and experiences are. We’ll probably work on an article about this soon.

Anyway, on to Opto’s Press Release:

Videos Prove Popular with Industrial Automation Market   Opto 22 Informs and Entertains as “OptoVideos” Proliferate on the World Wide Web   Temecula, CA - July 8, 2008 - Systems and design engineers, machine builders, and others in the industrial automation industry are finding great value in a series of online videos from Opto 22,  as a tool to help them understand, source, select, and apply control, monitoring and data acquisition technologies, products, and applications. Opto 22’s “OptoVideos” have been downloaded by the tens of thousands since they debuted just three months ago, and are now currently featured on the websites of several industry-leading blogs and trade publications, including Control Engineering (www.controleng.com), Automation World (www.automationworld.com), Design World (www.designworldonline.com), www.ControlGlobal.com, and the online resource Automation.com (www.automation.com).

“Over the past year, Opto 22 has made a corporate-wide commitment toward leveraging Web 2.0 technologies to engage, inform, and educate new and potential customers and other website visitors,” says Benson Hougland, Opto 22 Vice President of Marketing.   OptoVideos premiered in mid-March and have quickly become some of the most watched industrial automation videos available on the Web. Many of the industry’s most influential and heavily-trafficked websites have chosen to host videos of this type and have subsequently seen record download figures. Automation.com, for example, is an online web portal for industrial automation, process control, and instrumentation professionals. Site publisher Rick Zabel reports a “substantial increase in our website activity, in part due to an influx of videos, podcasts and other multimedia content.”

All of the OptoVideos (now close to 100 titles) are currently viewable via a Flash-based media player on the Opto 22 website. However, the company also provides the HTML code so others can easily link to or embed the player on their own websites. The videos can also be subscribed to and downloaded through Apple’s free iTunes software, and can be viewed and shared with peers through YouTube (www.youtube.com) as well as several popular blogs.

So how does Opto 22 produce all these videos? Hougland says the company has made a considerable investment in the high-definition production equipment, development tools, personnel, and facilities needed to create and deliver this dynamic video content.   Currently, the company is producing several types of OptoVideos. “PAC Your Things” video case studies feature an Opto 22 engineer visiting a customer site to conduct an interview, tour the facility, and see an industrial automation application in action. High-profile customers and applications from all over the U.S. have been featured, including Verizon Communications in New York City and the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA. Other customers featured in the “PAC Your Things” video series include Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources and Lumenyte International.

“OptoMinutes” are 60-second segments that educate the viewer on one particular aspect of industrial automation. These videos typically offer either general instruction or advice, such as tips for choosing the right temperature monitoring sensor, or they can be specific to the Opto 22 product line, such as providing an overview of the company’s operator interface terminals.

Similarly, Opto 22’s “Product Overview” videos provide brief introductions to the hardware, software, and accessories comprising the company’s flagship SNAP PAC System. Also available are a series of software screencasts, which are narrated video presentations the company uses to demonstrate in detail the features and functionality of its award-winning PAC Project automation software suite.

“Lastly, we have a number of interactive Flash tutorials that website visitors can navigate through at their own pace,” says Hougland. “Among other things, you can trace the history and evolution of the programmable automation controller (or PAC), see how our SNAP PAC System components fit together, find the correct I/O module for your application, discover different networking options, and much more.”

Content Locations OptoVideo Widescreen Player - includes “PAC Your Things” Case Studies, Product Overviews, and OptoMinutes: <http://www.opto22.com/video/players/owsplayer.aspx> OptoVideo Screencast Player - includes software demonstration screencasts for Opto 22’s PAC Project and associated software: <http://www.opto22.com/video/players/oscplayer.aspx> Interactive Flash Tutorials - includes “What is a PAC?”, SNAP I/O Selector Guide, Choosing Software, and Ethernet Networking: <http://www.opto22.com/site/leinteractiveflash.aspx>

ISA has just published a very interesting book, as much a departure for their publishing business as when they published Shari Worthington and my e-Business in Manufacturing book. Said book has found a new publisher and a second edition will be available sometime in the next six months…

But anyway, ISA Press has just published Patents, Trademarks, Copyrights, and Trade Secrets: What Automation Professionals, Manufacturers and Business Owners Need to Know.

Why should automation professionals care? Every company has an intellectual property policy, whether you are an end user or a vendor. It is really important to know what it is, and how to understand it, so you don’t accidentally do something wrong, or so that you don’t get finagled out of the value of an invention of yours.

It is written in fairly plain English, in what author Wendy Buskop, JD, calls “a somewhat fun and entertaining format.”

It is an interesting book, and a good basic read on Intellectual Property. If you have never read anything on the subject, this is required reading for automation professionals.

Research Triangle Park, NC (8 July 2008) - Dr. David J. Nagel, Research Professor at The George Washington University, will present the ISA EXPO 2008 Keynote/Rimbach Lecture on 15 October at ISA EXPO 2008 in Houston, Texas.

Dr. Nagel will discuss the potential for a new sensing and instrumentation market with the continued exploration and evolution of cold fusion technology in his Wednesday keynote address entitled, “Instrumentation for Low Energy Nuclear Reactions,” at 9:00 a.m.   An excerpt from his presentation abstract focuses on the history of cold fusion: “Two chemists announced in 1989 that they could produce nuclear reactions and energy under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. These reactions were termed “cold fusion”, even though no one really knew then what nuclear reactions might be occurring. In the years since 1989, hundreds of experiments have been done on what is now called Low Energy Nuclear Reactions, or the Fleischmann-Pons Effect. The total body of experimental evidence shows that it is indeed possible to produce nuclear reactions at low input energies. However, the field remains controversial and poorly understood. There is no satisfactory theory now for what has been observed.”

Past and current experiments require sophisticated instrumentation, including both multiple sensors and automated control of relevant conditions. Many people, including those in several start-up companies, believe that understanding, control, optimization and commercial exploitation of this new means to trigger nuclear reactions will follow in the coming years. If the anticipated advances occur, including significant scaling up in power levels, a new nuclear reactor industry will emerge. Sensing and control instrumentation will be as critical in that industry as they are in current energy production and process control industries.

For 36 years, Dr. Nagel has held positions of increasing responsibility at the Naval Research Laboratory. As a Division Superintendent for 13 years, he was a member of the Senior Executive Service, and managed the experimental and theoretical research and development efforts of 150 government and contractor personnel. Dr. Nagel has written or co-authored over 150 technical articles, reports, book chapters and encyclopedia articles. In 1998, he became a Research Professor of The George Washington University. He is General Chairman of the 14th International Conference on Cold Fusion in Washington DC.

Dr. Nagel’s R&D career has paralleled developments in MEMS and nano-technology. He is widely recognized as an authority in MEMS and nano-technology based sensors and wireless sensor systems. Dr. Nagel graduated (magna cum laude) with a BS in Engineering Science in 1960, and later completed an MS in Physics and PhD in Engineering Materials.

The Rimbach Lecture honors Richard Rimbach (1885-1979), long considered the Father of ISA, for his lifetime of service to the industry and for his leadership in founding the Society. The Rimbach Lecture, presented annually during ISA’s annual conference and exhibit, reflects Rimbach’s vision in technology advances, training, and motivation.

Press can register to attend the event in the online press room at www.isa.org/isaexpo2008. To learn more about ISA EXPO 2008, or to register as an attendee, visit www.isa.org/isaexpo2008 or call (919) 549-8411.