 Valedictory Message from President Huffman.
YAPFEST comes to Europe
 ISA's first European YAPFEST, an event for young
automation professionals under the age of 30, attracted
almost 300 attendees. In early November the Netherlands Section organised this event with the help and according the ideas taken from the fest which first happened last year at the ISAEXPO in Houston and wghich was so successful that it was repeated this year! Sponsored by 9 sponsors,
the Wednesday evening party gave young professionals
a chance to network with industry professionals from
participating companies, dance to the music of "The
Embers" a hot local band, and enjoy food and beer
provided by the sponsors.
"Events like YAPFEST are great ways to influence the
development of the next generation of automation
professionals," said ISA President Pieter van der
Klooster. "We love seeing young people mingle with
industry executives. It's good for the profession, and it's
an honor to bring that opportunity to young people
through this event."
Awards honours three in Dist 12
Three of our members were honoured at the Autumn Honours and Awards function in Houston in October. The awardees are photographed above with their fellow District 12 delegates and ISA President Huffman. The awardees - holding their awards - are from left: Eoin Ó Riain (IRL), Golden Achievement Award; Ron Migliorini (ENG) and Éamon Creech (IRL), Distinguished Society Service Award.
Click on picture to get full size copy (3MB).
All the
official photos on main society website!!
Summer Leaders Meeting
The Summer Leaders' Meeeting was held in Scottsdale Arizona, USA, in June.
This shows a number of members from District 12 at one of the meetings.:
From left: Alex Bobovitch, District VP, Billy Walsh, Former VP and Kevin Dignam, VP Elect.
A motion is being sent forward to the Council of Society Delegates in Houston to confirm the new name will be:ISA - The International Society for Automation. The logo will remain as before.
Professor Gerald Cockrell has been nominated for the poosition of President Elect/Secretary for the Society. The election for this position will also be by the Delegate Council in Houston. Dr Cockrell is very active in education and has given some "long-distance" seminars to the St Petersburg Section.
New District Education Chairman
This is Marijke Vreugdenhil who became District Education Committee Chairman for District 12 recently in succession to Charlotta Johnsson.  She has been with TWP Training as Training Manager for almost 3 years now. TWP is an ISA certified training center and
provides official ISA training courses since 2000. They work
together with seven ISA certified trainers. Her responsibilities for TWP
are to arrange everything related to training courses, contact with
(new) customers, organizing education sessions, organizing exhibitions,
etc.
She says, "I'm looking forward fulfilling my duties as Education Chairman and
working together with ISA headquarter & sections. Together we can do
a lot for our members!"
Meeting at conference
Maurizio Brancaleoni, Italy Section, (former European Region Chairman) visited St. Petersburg, Russia recently. He was a participant at the CEIR 2007 Congress. While there he met ou DVP Bobovitch.
The European Region predated District 12 as now constituted.
 Ron Migliorini promoted
Emerson Process Management has promoted Ron Migliorini to Vice President of Marquee Accounts, with specific responsibility for the BG Group worldwide.
Ron has served the ISA well in his local section, England, and has also held many positions in our District including VP.
Honoured at Houston
The following people/sections from the District were honoured at the Honours & Awards Banquet in October 2006 at Houston.
Maurice Radford - Ireland Section - Golden Achievement Award.
John Lotty - Ireland Section - Distinguished Society Award.
Kevin Dignam - Ireland Section - Emerging Leader Award.
Allan Rodrigo M. Gaban - Politecnico di Torino, Italy - Norman E. Huston Endowment worth $2000.
Spain Section - Section Performance Award - recognition for a specific accomplishment - developing a Master in Instrumentation and Control Program.
The Italy Section and the Ireland Section receive a Certificate of Accomplishment.
Russo-Italian joint seminar
The III ISA Italian- Russian students seminar wes organized in Catania ( Italy) at July 19-28, 2006. Nine Russian students from SUAI with Alex Bobovich were the guests of the students section of the catania University. Professor Orazio Mirabella (District 12 students committee chairman) prepared an excellent programme for Italian and Russian student-participants.
District 12 VP in special delegation to India
Billy Walsh, current District 12 VP as a member of the ISA Executive Committee was part of the Delegation which visited District 14 which includes the subcontinent of India. Above he is shown attending the District Leaders Council held during this visit and below with members of the Bangalore Section.
Student activity in Spain
The ISA Students in Spain will present a paper "Connecting academic and industry for education", at the ACE congress 2006 (Advances in Control Education 2006) to be held this June in Madrid. Billy Walsh, District VP commented: "This is ground breaking material (in my mind pioneering work), it really shows how active and involved the Student Sections in Spain are with local industry. A big thank you to the regular ISA Spain Section for promoting this collaboration between industry and the universities. Very impressive!"
The Paper (Format pdf)
District 12 Members attending President's Autumn
Meeting Chicago 2005 with Laura Crumpler our Liason in ISA Headquarters.
Alex Bobovitch made Fellow
Alex Bobovitch, VP Elect of the District was honoured as a Fellow of the Society in Chicago this year. He has been involved exppecially in student activities in the district for many years.
Picture shows him with Society President Don Zee at Chicago.
Joint Meeting - St Petersburg/St Louis
St. Petersburg (Russia) - St. Louis (USA) ISA joint meeting in St. Louis at July 20, 2005. During the First International Exchange Program ISU-SUAI July 15-24, 2005. 4 Russian ISA regular members and 7 students member visited Indiana at that period.
Leo Lang, Steve Huffman, Alex Bobovitch and Gerard Cockrell are included in the above picture taken at the event.
Membership Award for Ireland
Based on the deliberations of the ISA Honors & Awards Committee and approval of the ISA Executive Board, the ISA Ireland Section has been selected to receive a Section Performance Award for outstanding achievement in conducting a well documented and highly successful membership drive. The Award which includes a $500.00 honorarium and plaque will be presented at the ISA H&A function in Chicago 24th October.
Newsletter published in Italy
The latest issue of the Italy Section's newsletter in English may be downloaded here. It's an MS Word document.
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Russian Council meets
The ISA Russian Council meeting was organized at ISA HQRF office on January 18, 2008. The 2007 section report was presented by section past-president professor E. Krouk. The 2008 section plan of activities was present by section president professor I. Pavlov. The section president 2009 election process was commenced at this meeting.
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Dott. Ing. Augusto Mansutti - one of the oldest ISA district 12 members, awarded the ISA Life Achievement Award in 2004, has sent Christmas and New Year greetings from his Florence to all district 12 collegues.
All our members also greet him in return and wish him well.
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Autumn (Fall) Leaders Meeting
The Autumn Leaders' Meeeting was held in Houston, Texas, USA, just before ISA EXPO 2007.
This shows a section at the Council of Society Delegates which in effect is the annual general meeting of the society. Each section is represented and sits in a section reserved for its district. This body elects officers to the society and passes or rejects any motions which effect the constitution of the society
A motion to change the society name to "ISA - The International Society for Automation," was defeated.
Professor Gerald Cockrell was elected President Elect/Secretary for the Society. Dr Cockrell is very active in education and has given some "long-distance" seminars to the St Petersburg Section.
Honoured by the Society
The ISA Honors & Awards Committee met in late June to review candidate nominations and provide award recipient recommendations to the ISA Executive Board for approval. The above members of our district have been named and approved as honourees for recognition during the 2007 Annual H&A Banquet in Houston TX USA in the Autumn.
Left to right: Éamon Creech, Ireland Section and Ron Migliorini, England Section, who receive the Distinguished Society Service Award and Eoin Ó Riain, Ireland Section who receives the Golden Achievement Award.
Also honoured is Russian student Denis Shepetov who is to receive the $2,000 2007 scholarship award!
DLC 2007
Delegates at the 2007 DLC in St Petersburg, Russia, held on 24 and 25th May 2007.
Russion Federation President's Meeting
There are now 53 section members
from different cities of Russian Federation, Ukraine and Bellarus. There
are directors, scientists, specialists from different companies,
Universities. This is a picture of attendees at the RF President's
Meetinhg in January with DVP Bobovitch on extreme right.
LtoR:Alexey Sesin,Sergey Bazhin,Veronica Prokhorova,Alexander Samoylov,Evgueni Krouk, Yuri Podoplekin,Vitaly Khimenko,Alexander Bestugin,Anatoly Ovodenko,Igor Pavlov, Alexander Bobovich
Sad news from Russia -
A few days before 2007 the St. Petersburg Section have lost a valued member. Professor, ISA senior member Valery V. Elkin departed this life suddenly 
on December 27, 2006 at the relatively young age of 60.
He graduated from Leningrad Institute of Aerospace Instrumentation (now SUAI) in 1970 and get his Ph D in radio - engineering area .He was SUAI research department chair during 1983-1992. and more recently as SUAI management department professor. Valery was author of many research publication and patents.
He was ISA SUAI student section adviser. The Society and our discipline in Russia, District 12 and through the world have lost wonderful men and true friend.
Many ISA D12 colleagues remember him as one of the D12 LSC organiser in St. Petersburg in 2002.
May he rest in peace!
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 9/11/2006: We have just learned of the death of Fred Gilroy III, founder member and first president of the Ireland Section of ISA (1977/8) and founder of the Gilroy Group.
May he rest in peace!
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Newsletters keep members in picture
 It is often stressed that Newsletters are very important in keeping members who find it difficult to attend Section functions as fully informed as possible. Yes we have INTECH every month but because this is base on the worldwide membership the "small" technical meetings of Italy or Ireland will not feature. This is why the regular newsletter and (if available) the section up-to-date website is so vital. On the left is the latest newsletters brought to our attention, that of the new Kuwait Section.
Award for Spain
2006 Section Performance Award recommendations have been reviewed and approved and among them is the
Spain Section who have received ecognition for a specific accomplishment - developing a master in instrumentation and control program.
Long distance seminar yields results
The most recent last long distance seminar " Project Management"which was organized by Professor Gerald Cockrell since last November (2005). Students have just received the certificates and here they express their thanks to Professor Cockrell (on screen). This is some of the real ISA international students activity now happening in our district. VP Elect Bobovitch is on the right.
District Success in H&A 2006
DVP Walsh announced at the DLC in Manchester that four of the Society's awards are to go District 12 this year.
These were to Maurice Radford, founder member Ireland Section, twice District 12 VP in the eighties and guiding hand in the implementation of the global strategies of the society at that time. He receives the Golden Achievement award. John Lotty, twice president of the Ireland Section, recieves the Distinguished Society Service Award for services to the society in the Nineties and Kevin Dignam, current Ireland Section President, is awarded the Emerging Leader Award. The forth award is a student award, the Norman E. Huston Endowment of $2000 which is awarded to Allan Rodrigo M. Gaban, Politecnico di Torino Torino, Italy.
The District salutes these distinguished gentlemen and offers sincerest congratulations.
Welcome Kuwait!
The Executive Board approved new section charters at the recent Spring Meeting in Florida. Among these was a new District 12 Section, the Kuwait Section based in Kuwait City.
The Distrcit Council welcomed the approval of this charter and welcomes the Kuwait Section to the district.
Successful show in Ireland
The annual ISA Ireland Show was held in April and was regarded as a great success. Pictures may be found on their website. This one day table-top event is held every year. This year the associated symposium was on Intrinsic Safety.
New member benefits
On January 1, 2006, ISA
introduced three new member benefits. The benefits enhance the
membership experience of thousands of automation professionals. Each
full dues paying Member now receives a free standard each year of their
membership. Each Member also has free access to a library of web
seminars and free downloads of technical papers from past ISA
conferences.
65 Years contributing to industry
The St Petersberg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation (SUAI) is sixty five years in existance. At the present it is a unique scientific and educational centre in the field of aerospace instrumentation in Russian Federation. There are 11 faculties and 46 chairs, thirteen institutes and centers, over fifty directions of training, postgraduate and doctor's degree courses in SUAI.
The main directions of students training and scientific work in SUAI are aerospace instruments and systems, radio-engineering, electronics and communication, information systems and control, computer science and programming, economics, management and law.
It is a vigourous supporter of ISA activities not only in its native land but in Europe and throughout the world.
Group picture above with Plaque from ISA Headquarters and Glass Bowl from District 12 (Sponsored by Ireland Section). Dist 12 VP Elect Alex Bobavitch is 3rd from left.
 Going to Chicago!
This is Dmitry Bodnya (SUAI student) - winner of the ISA scolarship program 2005.
The scholarship includes $1,000.00 from the Executive Board Endowment, $4,000.00 from the General Educational Foundation for tuition and educational expenses in addition to a further $1,000.00 for travel expenses so as to assist in going to the ISA Autumn Show and Meeting in Chicago.
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Italian/Russian Seminar
The final session of the Second ISA Italian - Russian students seminar and The First ISA European students paper competition (ESPC-2005). The Vice Consul of Italy in St. Petersburg Jessica Lagana greeted students and presented certificates and medals. The picture shows participants and winners of the ESPC-2005 and participants of the Second ISA Italian - Russian students seminar. June 30, 2005, St. Petersburg State University of aerospace instrumentation, Russia
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