The inaugural class of honorees was recently inducted into the Measurement, Control and Automation Hall of Fame. Gordon Arnold, Wade Mattar, and Dick Morley received the honor during the Measurement, Control & Automation Association’s (MCAA) Industry Forum held April 17-19 in Nashville, Tennessee.
Industrial controls help create the value of a product and often spur innovative ideas that lead to new patents. The Measurement, Control and Automation Hall of Fame honors individuals whose body of work has contributed to the instrumentation and control industry in a significant and memorable way.
Gordon Arnold is Chairman of Sierra Monitor Corporation of Milpitas, California. A native of Australia, he attended the Melbourne Grammar School and received a BS in Business Administration from San Jose State University. As a founding member of Sierra Monitor in 1979, he lead the design and development of the company’s product line including the first digital bi-directional multi drop communication bus, the first serial Modbus communication output for plant-wide systems, the first interface to third party legacy sensors, and the first web based graphical system for monitoring hazardous gas conditions in industrial plants.
In accepting the award, Gordon Arnold addressed the often understated but vital role process controls play in the world, “We are the manufacturers and designers of the tools of measurement and control that keep the industry and infrastructure of our cities alive, “ he said. “The products we make are key to the way our society is able to function.”
Wade Mattar joined Schneider Electric| Foxboro of Foxboro, Massachusetts in 1975 and serves as Flow Marketing Manager. He holds degrees from Boston University and Northeastern University. He holds numerous patents including the Multiphase Coriolis Flowmeter and the Pulsing Pressure Densitometer. In 2003, he received a Certificate of Acclamation from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers for his work on measurement of fluid flow in closed conduits. He is a contributor to numerous articles, technical papers, and handbooks.
Wade Mattar thanked the capacity crowd of executives and managers for creating an environment where ideas can flourish. “Because of you giving us the opportunity to do what we love to do more than anything in the world, which is innovate, that is what makes this industry so much fun and so important, “ he said. “We change the world.”
Dick Morley is considered the father of the programmable logic controller (PLC) and the inventor of the floppy disk drive. He spent his early years on a farm in Clinton, Massachusetts before studying physics at MIT. In 1968 he founded the company MODICON and developed the first PLC for General Motors. He holds more than 20 US and foreign patents including the parallel inference machine, the hand-held terminal, and magnetic thin film. His innovations have had a significant impact on the fields of computer design, artificial intelligence, and technology trend forecasting. He is the author or co-author of four books. Prior to his retirement, he lived and worked at “The Barn” in Nashua, New Hampshire where he and his wife raised over forty foster children. Consultants at “The Barn,” worked globally on leading edge manufacturing and process controls innovation.
His close personal friend Don Clark, Vice President of Global Application Consulting for Schneider Electric | Invensys, accepted the award on Mr. Morley’s behalf. “As far as Dick is concerned, the results are not important, it is the process that counts,” he said. He then read a statement Mr. Morley had prepared. “There is no stopping us. The next twenty years will be very exciting. Harvest the future because you are the future. Don’t ever let anyone pin you down. Politics may come and go but technology doesn’t.”
MCAA exists to help the management teams of process and factory automation product and solution providers run and grow successful businesses by offering timely, unique and highly specialized resources acquired from shared management benchmarks where proprietary company information is secure.
>>For more information, click here.
