Control Loop Foundation

Batch and Continuous Processes -
Interactive Source for Process Control

The Book

Meet The Authors

Terrence L. “Terry” Blevins

Terrence L. “Terry” Blevins has been actively involved in the application and design of process control systems throughout his career. For more than 15 years, he worked as a systems engineer and group manager in the design and startup of advanced control solutions for the pulp and paper industry. Terry was instrumental in the establishment of Emerson Process Management’s Advanced Control Program. From 1998-2005 Terry was the team lead for the development of DeltaV advanced control products. He is the Fieldbus Foundation team lead for the development and maintenance of the Function Block Specification and editor of the SIS Architecture and Model Specifications. In this capacity, Terry is involved in the adoption of Fieldbus Foundation function block work by international standards. Terry is the US expert to the IEC SC65E WG7 function block committee that is responsible for the IEC 61804 function block standards. He is a voting member and chairman of ISA SP104-EDDL (Electronic Device Description Language) committee and is the technical advisor to the United States Technical Advisory Group (USTAG) for the IEC65E subcommittee. He is also a member of the USNC TAG (IEC/SC65 and IEC/TC65).

Terry authored “An Overview of the ISA/IEC Fieldbus,” Section 11, Standards Overview, Fifth Edition of the Process/Industrial Instruments and Controls Handbook and coauthored four sections in the Fourth Edition of the Instrumentation Engineer’s Handbook, Process Control and Optimization. He coauthored the ISA bestselling books Advanced Control Unleashed and Control Loop Foundation. He has over 45 patents and has written over 70 papers on process control system design and applications. Terry received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Louisville in 1971 and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University in 1973. In 2004, he was inducted into Control Magazine’s Process Automation Hall of Fame. Presently, Terry is a principal technologist in the future architecture team of DeltaV Product Engineering at Emerson Process Management.

Mark Nixon

Mark started his career as a systems engineer working on projects in oil & gas, chemicals, and pulp & paper. He moved from Canada to Austin in 1988 where he has held positions in both research and development. He was involved in the inception of DeltaV and was lead architect from 1995 through 2005. In 2006 he took a very active role in the design and standardization of WirelessHART. He is involved in several standards groups including ISA, IEC, FieldComm, IEEE, and OASIS. He is one of the editors for ISA101. He currently leads the applied research group where he is pursuing his interests in control, analytics, wireless, mobile, and advanced graphics. He holds over 160 patents and has coauthored five books on wireless, control, and operator interfaces. He is an ISA Fellow and in 2012 was inducted into the Automation Hall of Fame. He received his bachelors from the University of Waterloo in Canada.