ISA names Paul Gruhn 2019 president

The International Society of Automation (ISA) has announced that Paul Gruhn, PE, CFSE, and ISA Life Fellow, is its 2019 Society President.

In his role as Society President, Gruhn will lead the ISA Board of Directors, which is responsible for governing, setting policy and establishing the strategic direction of the organization. ISA is a nonprofit professional association that provides technical resources and programs for those who apply engineering and technology to improve the management, safety and cybersecurity of modern automation and control systems used across industry and critical infrastructure.

“I’m honored to be the 2019 Society President,” said Gruhn, a globally recognized expert in process safety and safety instrumented systems who has played a pivotal role in developing ISA safety standards, training courses and publications. “Like any organization over the last 30 years, ISA has naturally had its ups and downs. To grow and remain relevant, we must adapt to both the changing times and the changing demographics of our industry.”

Gruhn is a Global Functional Safety Consultant with aeSolutions, a process safety, cybersecurity and automation consulting firm. He serves as a Co-Chair and long-time member of the ISA 84 standard committee (on safety instrumented systems), and continues to develop and teach ISA courses on safety systems. He also developed the first commercial safety system modeling program. Gruhn has written two ISA textbooks, numerous chapters in other books and dozens of published articles.

Gruhn earned a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology, is a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) in Texas, and both a Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE) and an ISA 84 Safety Instrumented Systems Expert.