December

St. Louis
Section
www.isastl.org
December
Loop
2008
Upcoming Section Events
Jan 7
Program / Meeting
Control System Platform Selection
Feb 4
Program / Meeting
PID Loop Design Strategy & Philosophy
Mar 4
Program/Meeting
Industrial Flow Measurement Roundtable
December 10, 2008
Program Meeting
SCADA Case Study
See page 2 for details
Dinner Menu:
Top Round of Beef, Chicken Marsala,
Cavatelli Con Broccoli, Herbed
Rosemary Potatoes, Roasted Sweet
Corn & Peppers, Salad, Rolls &
Brownies.
Meeting Location
Andre’s
4254 Telegraph Rd.
1/4 mile south of I-255/270 in Oakville
See map at www.isastl.org
4:30-5:30 pm:
5:30-6:15 pm:
6:15-7:00 pm:
7:00-8:00pm:
Board Meeting
Networking/Social hour
Dinner
Program
Members $20 / Students $5
Non-Members $25
No RSVP, add $5 at the door.
RSVP & Pay at www.isastl.org
Meeting Location:
Andre’s
4254 Telegraph Rd.
1/4 mile south
of I-255/270
On the East side of Telegraph Road.
December Meeting Sponsor
Mead O’Brien
Control Microsystems SCADASense™ pressure transmitters are
available in MODBUS protocol!
Mead O’Brien represents Control Microsystems, a global supplier of automation products for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. Control Microsystems is the world’s largest, privately held SCADA products company. Founded in 1980,
Control Microsystems leads the industry in the development and manufacture of innovative products including the SCADAPack™ advanced controller series, the SCADASense™ intelligent sensors series, the SCADARange wireless instrumentation series
and the lineup of SCADAWave™ data radio products.
The company also offers ClearSCADA™, the state-of-the-art SCADA host system that
provides open architecture for use in any application. All Control Microsystems products
are engineered for installation in harsh, unattended environments and are used around
the world in municipal water and wastewater automation, natural gas and crude oil production, gathering, and pipeline automation and a wide variety of other industrial automation applications.
For more information, visit www.controlmicrosystems.com.
Local Contact:
Ron Jansen
Mead O’Brien
rjansen@meadobrien.com
314-423-5161
December Meeting
Sponsor
Burns & McDonnell – St. Louis.
425 S. Woods Mill Road
St. Louis, MO 63017
Wayne Schmidt
314-682-1500
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Sections, Districts, Divisions, Oh My!
Things have been so busy over the last few months that I have not been able to think about what I want
to talk about this month. I often wonder what my place is in the grand scheme of things. I like to know
how and where I fit in and ISA is no different. So I decided that if I have this curiosity, others probably do
as well. With our national election decided, I thought that this might be a good opportunity to talk about
the governance of ISA and how we as members fit into it.
It all starts with you the member…the life-blood of our organization. The membership is assigned to Sections based upon the geographic proximity to where you live. I am writing to the St. Louis Section which
includes the greater St. Louis metropolitan area as well as reaching eastward into Southern Illinois, as
far north as Hannibal, as far west as Columbia, and as far south as St. Genevieve. Sections have volunteer Board of Directors that are responsible for providing support, networking, and training opportunities
to the membership assigned to the Section such as the monthly meetings you are accustomed to in St.
Louis. These directorship positions vary from Section to Section, but generally include a Section President, Vice President, Past President, Secretary, and Treasurer. These leaders are trained to serve and
occasionally have responsibilities outside the Section such as being a Delegate to the Council of Society
Delegates that convenes once a year at the Fall Leaders Meetings to represent the Section membership
in the parliamentary conduct of Society business.
Membership can also become a participant in Divisions. A Division is a segment of our industry that
represents your technical specialty. ISA is a vast organization that touches many different areas of specialization, and this is a way to identify and interact with other members in your specialty area. Time for
a public member announcement…AS A MEMBER, YOU NOW HAVE FREE ACCESS TO ANY TWO
DIVISIONS! A list of divisions can be found at: http://www.isa.org/Template.cfm?Section=Division_List
Sections are then assigned to Districts. Districts are grouped…you guessed it, by regional proximity. Districts also have volunteer leadership that are nominated and elected from within the membership representing the District. These leaders provide oversight to the geographic groups as the ‘arms’ of the Society. There are currently 14 Districts worldwide. St. Louis hails from District 8. The volunteer District Leadership is comprised of a District Vice President, District Vice President Elect, Treasurer, and Nominator.
The 14 District VPs form the Board of District VPs at the Society level, which brings us to…
The Society level. This is the Senior governing body of ISA. It consists of a volunteer Executive Board,
an Executive Committee, the President’s, Past President’s, and Treasurer’s department, and a staff of
approximately 75 paid professionals that are dedicated to the Society’s mission and conduct the daily
business of the Society. The St. Louis Section has had the privilege of participating in the Society leadership in many positions including several Society Presidents. So as you can see, within the ISA, opportunities abound and the sky is the limit for your professional development. The Society is all about sharpening your ‘mad’ leadership skills and preparing you for an upwardly mobile career in Automation.
All you have to do is get involved. If you have an interest in seeing your career and leadership skills
grow, contact me or another Board Member to get started today!
Jeff Gamber
president@isastl.org
Automation Federation
Creating the competency framework for automation careers.
I was asked to bring the Section membership up to date on one of the major activities in which Automation Federation has been involved. That activity has been taking the lead on developing competency
framework model for the automation profession in partnership with the US Department of Labor. Rather
than provide all the details to give this justice, a press release was posted after the second meeting of
subject matter experts in process, manufacturing, and hybrid industry automation during ISA EXPO
which does a better job of succinctly explaining this than me. The press release is attached (or link is
below).
While most of you are thinking, “I know these folks are involved in stuff outside Section activities, in
some cases even outside ISA, but what does it really have to do with me and my own situation?” My
thought is that this article should address that question and if you are interested in the other details, the
documentation is all there. Most of you know that for the past few years, ISA has embarked upon an
outward focus aimed at trumpeting the under-recognized automation profession. Those of us involved in
instrumentation, control systems, motion control, and all the other sub-disciplines and technologies
which fall within what we now have defined as automation have failed collectively to get the respect
which is long overdue from corporate executives for their collective contributions to production efficiencies. To this day, the perception exists that IT is a primary contributor of modern developments in American industry. While the information technology people have contributed, many people fail to see that the
true technical process and/or manufacturing knowledge has been applied by automation professionals
broadly from the plant floor to production operations technology.
Seeing that ISA could not stand alone in this quest, one way to rally others to our cause outside of ISA
was to found the Automation Federation as a separate umbrella organization to attract automationrelated groups, large or small to our cause with the possible additional benefit of improving their own organizational skills and operations by virtue of management contracts with ISA. In its three years of existence, AF has made quite an impression internally to its member societies, but also externally especially
to lawmakers and agencies of the US government.
Perhaps one of the greater accomplishments, especially coming on the heels of the Society name
change and universal definition of automation, is the competency model for automation which effectively
puts us on the world map and gives form to our function of gaining respect for a profession previously
viewed as disparate subgroups without sponsorship. Do not get me wrong, ISA Society efforts now and
over many years have produced many quality standards, and many more excellent educational products
and services, but primarily to an internal audience.
As an additional bit of information, St. Louis Section was well represented in the development of the
competency model with Steve Huffman as Chair and sessions moderator, Vernon Trevathan, Steve
Pflantz, and Paul Galeski as participants. Please view the competency model at:
http://rdstage.careeronestop.org/CompetencyModel/pyramid.aspx?AT=Y .
In early December, the model will be rolled out by a webinar from Washington, DC to DOL Regional offices, Community Colleges, Workforce Development Boards, and One Stop Career centers. We’ve only
begun this exciting work and future ramifications are great. If you are interested in more details, or how
this will affect the future of automation, just talk to one of the participants listed at the next meeting!
View the press release at: www.automationfederation.org and select the 23 October press release. Visit
a few other topics while you are there.
Steve Huffman
Board Meeting Minutes
November 5, 2008
The meeting was called to order at 4:35 PM.
In attendance: Jeff Gamber, Jeff Blair, Tom Glauber, Cory Kniepp, Vernon Trevathan, Keith Thomas, Steve
Pflantz, Steve Huffman, John Mangoff
President: Jeff Gamber gave us an update on the ISA Leadership Seminar he attended. The creation of a leadership network was announced at this seminar. Jeff also asked to gather different views for the “What ISA means to
Me” membership campaign.
Vice-President: Nothing to report – Dan was not in attendance.
Past President: Jeff Blair reported that he will be publishing in the Loop what he saw in Houston as a local delegate.
Treasurer: The section currently has a balance of $14,791.32. Tom reported this amount does not include PayPal
and Credit Card payments. Also, there had been an issue with previous PayPal payments that we did not receive,
and an effort to ask for money for these missed payments from the first meeting was initiated.
Membership: Jeff Gamber suggested we begin calling non-active members and asked to begin looking for volunteers to call. There was a consensus that these calls could be split amongst the board members. Jeff stated he
would prepare a call list. Jeff also reported he has written an email to contact non-active members.
Program: Jeff Blair announced that ASCO and Foxboro will be sponsoring the November meeting. He reported
that Rodney Robins of Burns & McDonnell will be December’s speaker and that he was still looking for a speaker
for January’s wireless HART program. Jeff asked that we all continue to promote sponsorship opportunities for the
monthly programs.
Professional Development: Vernon added to Jeff Gamber’s previous statement about looking for views of “What
ISA means to Me,” stating that web-seminars and technical papers are great benefits to the ISA members.
Education: Keith spoke with Bob Olsen and Jason Dodge of MO Tech. Jason will be running the student games
this year. Keith also asked if anyone was available to attend Ranken’s board meeting the following evening, and
Vernon offered to attend.
Marketing: Jeff Gamber had nothing to report.
Newsletter: Steve Pflantz reported that the deadline for submissions for the November newsletter is November
26th.
Web Master: Jeff Gamber reported a Trojan virus affected the website, but with the change of hosts and update to
the site the problem had been taken care of. Also, the PayPal issue had been cleared up. Jeff wants to develop a
library of engineering cheat sheets on the site and asked if anyone had anything to offer.
Honors and Awards: Steve Huffman had nothing to report.
Golf Outing: There was nothing to report.
Old Business: There was no old business.
New Business: There was no new business.
The meeting adjourned at 5:30 PM.
St. Louis ISA
Job Posting Service
The St. Louis Section is now providing help wanted / job postings as well as listings for members who are looking for work.
Employers may have listings for positions they are hiring for in the monthly Loop as well as on
the Section web site for one month. Postings on the web site are updated 8-10 days prior to the
monthly meetings, coinciding with the publishing of the Loop for the month. Deadline of submitting postings is 15 days prior to monthly meetings. Monthly rates are as follows:
•
•
•
Full page Loop notice and web posting:
Half page Loop notice and web posting:
Quarter page Loop notice and web posting:
$100.00 per month
$60.00 per month
$40.00 per month
Members who are looking for employment may post their resume and/or notice that they are
seeking employment on the web site, with a summary listing in the Loop. Postings are FREE to
members seeking employment, and must be requested monthly, with the same deadline as paid
employer postings.
Commercial information may be placed at the same rates as above.
Professional Development Credits
Those who attended the October 2008 program on Squeezing Money Out of Utilities
are eligible for 1 Professional Development Hour. Attendees are listed below:
Dennis Barrow, Jeff Blair, Jim Book, Gary Borgens, Nick Camen, Nick Erickson, Jeff Gamber,
Steve Huffman, Cory Kniepp, Walt Maag, Tad Majka, John Mangoff, Paul Neuhoff, Jim Ostendorf, Mark Paisley, Jason Pennington, Steve Pflantz, Jim Rahn, Mark Schroepfer, Keith Thomas, Vernon Trevathan, Mike Unterreiner, Rodney Weisheimer, Don Wells, Chip Westaby,
Quentin Williams, Rich Yahl & James Yarbrough.
Those who attended the November 2008 program on Economics of Synthetic Fuel
Production are eligible for 1 Professional Development Hour. Attendees are listed below:
Jeff Blair, Gary Borgens, Hal Dygert, Richard Dygert, Jeff Gamber, Tom Glauber, Hans Haven,
Linda Hess, Scott Howard, Steve Huffman, Jeffrey Johnson, Cory Kniepp, Jason Lash, Terry
Lash, Jim Linahan, Walt Maag, Tad Majka, John Mangoff, Paul Neuhoff, Lee Patzius, Steve
Pflantz, Mike Potter, Larry Sasfai, Keith Thomas, Vernon Trevathan, Mike Unterreiner, & Don
Wells.
Photos from our November Meeting
Welcome to Our Newest Members!
The St. Louis Section of the ISA would like to take a moment to extend a welcome to our
newest member(s):
Paul Archambeault
.
We are glad to have you and hope that you find ISA to be a rewarding experience. Please do
not hesitate to contact any Board members, or members in general if you have any questions,
comments or concerns.
PDHs are awarded for meeting programs with technical content or training
material presented. Our programs meet the requirements for 1 PDH.
For those needing PDH credits, be sure to keep copies of the Loop. It will
contain the list of meeting attendees for the previous meeting and note PDH
information.
SECTION OFFICERS 2008-2009
Jeff Gamber
President
Clark, Richardson & Biskup
314-997-1515
President@stlisa.org
John Mangoff
Membership
ConocoPhillips
618-255-2075
Membership@stlisa.org
Dan Elze
Vice-President
Emerson Process
Steve Pflantz
Newsletter Editor
Clark, Richardson & Biskup
314-997-1515
Newsletter@stlisa.org
VicePresident@stlisa.org
Cory Kniepp
Secretary
Emerson Industrial Automation
Secretary@stlisa.org
Jeff Gamber
Web Master
Clark, Richardson & Biskup
314-997-1515
Webmaster@stlisa.org
Tom Glauber
Treasurer
Clark, Richardson & Biskup
314-997-1515
Treasurer@stlisa.org
Brian Nixon
Golf Outing
Sachs Electric Company
636-532-2000
Golf@stlisa.org
Jeff Blair
Past President / Delegate
Mead O’Brien
314-372-1805
PastPresident@stlisa.org
Steve Huffman
Honors & Awards
Mead O’Brien
314-423-5161
Honors_awards@stlisa.org
ISA, St. Louis Section | P.O. Box 1232 | Maryland Heights, MO 63043
www.isastl.org