“Father of Control System Integration” Dies

Jan. 12, 2009

Nels Tyring, commonly considered the father of the profession of control system integration, passed away after a long bout with cancer in December. He was 77.

Tyring was one of the founders of the Control System Integrators Association, CSIA. He was also was the guiding light of the Automation Alliance Group, an innovative joint venture of several small system integrators who pooled their intellectual property and engineering standards in order to compete with global integrators and vendors.

 “I am not really scared,” Tyring said this past summer, referring to his cancer. “This is just the next adventure. It is something I have to do.”

Tyring was born June 11, 1931, in Providence, R.I., and lived most of his life in New Hampshire, where his system integration firm, TVC Systems, is located.

Tyring, according to his friends, was a modern day Viking. “He was so much larger than life,” said Telesian Technology’s Shari Worthington, “that it is hard to imagine him gone.”

Tyring served in the U.S. Marines in Korea at the Chosin Reservoir. “I’m not afraid of death,” he said. “Every day since Korea has been a bonus day.”

Tyring epitomized the traits of a successful Marine—honesty, intelligence, bravery, organization and determination. He let nothing stop him from doing what he wanted to do, whether it was to bicycle across Wisconsin for his 65th birthday or sail as supercargo on the Beagle for his 70th birthday.

Tyring was a long-time member of ISA, the International Society of Automation, where he served as both a District and a Department Vice President. With his friends, Ray Molloy and John McCamey, he successfully created a publications department for ISA that continues to be one of the best sources of information in the field of automation and controls.

He was also a founder of the Industrial Computing Society and was a Fellow member of that society and a member of its executive board.

Tyring is survived by his wife Joan, his daughters and their children.