Whether volunteering their time to advance critical industry standards, mentoring engineering students as they take on society’s Grand Challenges, or simply making sure that operators’ voices are heard, this year’s inductees into the Control Process Automation Hall of Fame are a potent force for positive change. For the people and organizations with which they work, for the practice of process automation—and for the world.
On the pages that follow you’ll find the stories of the four humble yet passionate individuals who were voted into the Control Process Automation Hall of Fame by those 61 members who have been inducted since the institution was first convened in 2001 (see table).
Please join me in congratulating and welcoming to the Hall of Fame Bridget Fitzpatrick, process automation authority for engineering and consulting firm Wood; Dr. Babatunde Ogunnaike, William L. Friend Chaired Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware; John Rezabek, process control specialist for specialty chemicals maker Ashland Inc. (and longtime columnist for Control); and, last but certainly not least, Tom Burke, global director of industry standards for Mitsubishi Electric, as well as director of strategic marketing for Mitusbishi’s Iconics software brand and global strategic advisor for the closely allied CC-Link Partner Association.
If they’ve not touched you in the course of your professional or educational journeys, I hope that you enjoy getting to know—and being inspired by—Bridget, Tunde, John and Tom on the pages that follow. It was an honor, a pleasure and a privilege to interview each of them.
— Keith Larson
Bridget Fitzpatrick
Among this year's four inductees, Bridget Fitzpatrick currently serves as Process Automation Authority for the global consultancy and engineering firm, Wood, where she also leads the Process Automation Systems domain of the Global Technical Expert Network. Fitzpatrick has derived considerable satisfaction from making steady progress at improving operator response by providing better controls, better interfaces and better alarms, and it was her contributions to the “innovative improvement of alarm management and HMI design practices” for which she was named an ISA Fellow. Read more.
Dr. Babatunde Ogunnaike
Dr. Babatunde Ogunnaike also joins the Control Process Automation Hall of Fame this year. The William L. Friend Chaired Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware is working to model and control the incredible complexities of biological processes with an eye to streamlining the production of biopharmaceuticals, and enabling the practice of personalized medicine at scale. Read more.
Tom Burke
Tom Burke is most recognizable as the longtime president and executive director of the OPC Foundation, and currently serves as global director of industry standards for Mitsubishi Electric as well as director of strategic marketing for Mitsubishi’s Iconics software brand and global strategic advisor for the closely allied CC-Link Partner Association. Burke was among the OPC specification’s chief authors and also drove the open-source release of the OPC UA specification. Read more.
John Rezabek
The final of this year's four inductees is John Rezabek, a longtime contributor to Control magazine. Through the years, his work with analyzers in particular drove a passion for digital integration, for which he quickly became an advocate, even chairing the Fieldbus Foundation’s end user advisory group for a time. Read more.
