I am pleased to announce the Class of 2011 for the Process Automation Hall of Fame. Elected by their peers in the Hall, these automation professionals have made clear and extensive contributions to the domain of process automation, and are being recognized for their work and careers.

John Berra, recently retired Chairman of Emerson Process Management.

In his 41 year career, spanning all phases of work in the automation industry, Berra's devotion to the profession and his dedication to furthering the work of ISA's standards organization stands out. His vision and willingness to take risks changed the face of distributed control, introduced digital fieldbuses (HART and FF) and human centric design.

Dr. Sigurd Skogestad, Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering, NTNU

Skogestad is considered one of the world's authorities on multivariable control, and he has worked in the power industry as well as academia. The goal of his research is to develop simple yet rigorous methods to solve problems of engineering significance. Research interests include the use of feedback as a tool to (1) reduce uncertainty (including robust control), (2) change the system dynamics (including stabilization), and (3) generally make the system more well-behaved (including self-optimizing control). Other interests include limitations on performance in linear systems, control structure design and plantwide control, interactions between process design and control, and distillation column design, control and dynamics.

Dr. Maurice Wilkins, VP Global Marketing Services, Yokogawa Corporation

Dr. Wilkins has had an extensive career as an end-user, as a vendor, and as an analyst. His work at Yokogawa and previously at Honeywell created the basis for the new ISA106 standard committee on procedure-controlled automation, and he was the long-time chairman of WBF, during the time it changed from World Batch Forum to WBF, the Organization for Production Technology. Dr. Wilkins has developed much of the theory behind ISA88 and ISA106.

Congratulations!