Sections and Divisions Report, September 2009

There is no question that big changes are upon us in the ISA. Of course, first it was the name change to International Society of Automation, then the Society made the membership in a couple of Divisions a matter of just paying your annual dues. But what did all of that do for the active Divisions? Did membership go down? Did activity go up? Just what did happen to those successful Divisions like the Analysis Division, Chempid, the Power Industries Division, ConDes, WWID, and others?

Now, there is a move toward the overpowering Automation Federation which has somehow placed the ISA side by side with three fledgling technical groups, OMAC, WINA, and World Batch Forum, and bunched us all under the AF “blanket” which makes the ISA, a group of more than 30,000 members, look like a little player in a “sea” of little players. Why, there’s even a move toward an “Automation Week” instead of the ISA conference and exhibit which we all attend and enjoy. It should be pointed out that without the activities of ISA, regardless of what the letters stand for, there would be no Automation Federation, and for that matter, without the initial and continued financial support from the Society, the other groups would hardly exist!

Of course, the ISA will continue to be the “big brother” to those other groups until they have reasonable success, or failure. And successful Divisions of the Society will continue to be active and their leadership groups will continue to support them and their goals. What is needed now is a new amount of activity in Divisions to welcome those new members and to encourage them to work toward the successful operations of all of the Divisions.

It is never too late to remind everyone that Divisions are the “technical backbone” of the Society and therefore they are the technical support needed for the development of all and any of the new societies that may be formed. In the meantime, I’m stressing that Division membership must be more than a checked box on the ISA membership form, and that all of us should continue to encourage all members to participate in Division activities. With that frame of mind, the Division leaders will continue to be active in the development of standards, in creating the strong programming essential for the continued successes of Division symposia, and in overall advancement of the control systems engineering profession.

L.M. “Dutch” Keen, P.E. CAM
Section & Divison Liaison
Houston – The ISA Section!