Vasser, Schleiss, Hedengren elected to Control’s Process Automation Hall of Fame
Sandy Vasser, retired IC&E manager at ExxonMobil, and Duncan Schleiss, VP of business development at Emerson, were elected as industry inductees to the 2025 Process Automation Hall of Fame. John Hedengren, professor and leader of the process, research and intelligence system modeling group (PRISM) at Brigham Young University (BYU), is this year’s academic inductee.
Control magazine and ControlGlobal.com announced the new inductees on April 8. They join the hall of fame’s 76 process control luminaries, who nominated and elected the new inductees through their usual, extensive process. Now in its 25th year, the Process Automation Hall of Fame recognizes excellence, diligence, influence and contributions to the process control industries. All members are considered "prudentes temporo mentoris" or "wise control mentors."
Each new inductee will be featured in a series of articles and podcasts at ControlGlobal.com during the coming weeks. They’ll also be featured in April/May issue of Control.
Vasser is a 38-year veteran of the oil and gas industry with special emphasis on design, construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance of automation and power facilities. He worked with all of the global automation suppliers in the development of universal I/O, virtual FATs, automatic commissioning and the creation of completely standard automation system components that could be ordered with a data sheet and part number.
Schleiss is often cited as the flagbearer of DeltaV, Emerson’s advanced distributed control system (DCS), and was part of the teams that developed several advances in DCS technology at multiple companies throughout his career.
Hedengren, a chemical engineer, not only teaches at BYU, but also leads PRISM, which focuses on physics-informed machine learning (ML) for optimizingenergy systems, unmanned aircraft and drilling. A former collegiate distance runner, he also hosts a popular YouTube channel focused on his work with AI-driven technology to unlock athletic potential.
