Note: Industry Futurist Jim Pinto will cease publishing automation newsletter.
Denny Harris was a retired US military officer when he went to Ford Aerospace in Orange County, California just in time to play a significant role in implementing their quality program. This was in the 1980's when US auto companies were battered by price competition and the better quality Japanese vehicles. For D...etroit, the past was glorious, the future uncertain and the present was desperate. Lee Iacocca came along, as Chrysler CEO and nearly singlehandedly jumpstarted the US auto industry with his charisma and dedication to what made America great in the first place. He nearly ran for President.
Denny was also a dynamic and restless man. He was the type to get the job done, get it done now and do it right. He noticed an ad for a struggling startup in 1986 in Irvine, California called Triconex. The startup was struggling, had just laid off nearly 1/2 its 50 employees and fired the company founder. There was 4 months operating cash left and the rest of the company would fold, the venture capital investors would write it off as a failure, part of the risk of doing business. The initial investor? Future two-term Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.
It was the perfect situation for Denny. After all, Mr. Iacocca took on a similar task and turned it around. The remaining Triconex employees, including future Wonderware co-founder Phil Huber were wary. Denny was a whirlwind, a burst of energy wrapped in military bearing. How would he fit into a startup of risk-takers who had left more secure jobs to be part of a greater good? A group of employees who had been working on a dream to build the world's first digital safety system using a space age technology known as TMR for nearly two years, living paycheck to paycheck? The flagship product was called the Tricon.
Well, Denny fit in quite well. Implementing the Triconex quality program had no margin for error, it had to exceed the requirements of Exxon, Mobil (yes, there used to be an Exxon and Mobil), Shell, and the rest of the oil sisterhood. Later, it would become the world's first Commercial Off-the-shelf controller to be certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC). Denny stayed with Triconex through the struggling years, the IPO, and the sale of Triconex to a British holding company, then called Siebe.
When he hired a Technical trainer who later would become the training manager, he told his new hire about an automation guru named Jim Pinto whose industry insights were being circulated on new web based technologies like email and blogs. Mr. Pinto was more a futurist than a historian, and many corporate executives were clearly unhappy with his sharp wit and predictions, particularly when it effected their quarterly bonuses. Mr. Pinto also had a history with Siebe, having sold his dynamic company Action Instruments to them. Jim published books and kept circulating his insights, at Triconex today there are Jim Pinto signed books in many of the engineering cubicles.
Denny died from Alzheimer's in 2007. He remained friends with Wonderware co-founders Phil Huber and Dennis Morin. The later built a Fellini-esque bungalow in Laguna Beach known as the Rock House. It listed for 16 million when it was put up for sale after Mr. Morin died on the last day of 2012. Triconex and Wonderware of course, ceased to exist as independent companies in the 1990's, but their brands live on. Phil Huber continues to be a technology wizard for startups, the latest being Philadelphia based Thingworx, headed by former Wonderware executive Rick Bullota.
The dawn of automation occurred in Paris at the beginning of the 19th century. At the height of the space age, an MIT trained physicist named Dick Morley built the modern Programmable Logic Controller. During the Apollo program, a TMR based system was aboard a Saturn booster rocket. The next time a TMR based system was in the air was some 20 years later, hoisted by Tricon architect Gary Hufton and Phil Huber among others, as Triconex employees loaded the first Tricon onto a truck to make its first commercial delivery in June, 1986. Today, Paris based Schneider-Electric owns Mr. Morley's former company, Modicon, as well as Triconex and Wonderware. The executive team from Schneider, including CEO Jean Pascal Tricoire, live in Hong Kong.
To paraphrase a French saying, the more things stay the same the more things change.
Gary Wilkinson
Triconex Training Manager
Denny Harris was a retired US military officer when he went to Ford Aerospace in Orange County, California just in time to play a significant role in implementing their quality program. This was in the 1980's when US auto companies were battered by price competition and the better quality Japanese vehicles. For D...etroit, the past was glorious, the future uncertain and the present was desperate. Lee Iacocca came along, as Chrysler CEO and nearly singlehandedly jumpstarted the US auto industry with his charisma and dedication to what made America great in the first place. He nearly ran for President.
Denny was also a dynamic and restless man. He was the type to get the job done, get it done now and do it right. He noticed an ad for a struggling startup in 1986 in Irvine, California called Triconex. The startup was struggling, had just laid off nearly 1/2 its 50 employees and fired the company founder. There was 4 months operating cash left and the rest of the company would fold, the venture capital investors would write it off as a failure, part of the risk of doing business. The initial investor? Future two-term Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.
It was the perfect situation for Denny. After all, Mr. Iacocca took on a similar task and turned it around. The remaining Triconex employees, including future Wonderware co-founder Phil Huber were wary. Denny was a whirlwind, a burst of energy wrapped in military bearing. How would he fit into a startup of risk-takers who had left more secure jobs to be part of a greater good? A group of employees who had been working on a dream to build the world's first digital safety system using a space age technology known as TMR for nearly two years, living paycheck to paycheck? The flagship product was called the Tricon.
Well, Denny fit in quite well. Implementing the Triconex quality program had no margin for error, it had to exceed the requirements of Exxon, Mobil (yes, there used to be an Exxon and Mobil), Shell, and the rest of the oil sisterhood. Later, it would become the world's first Commercial Off-the-shelf controller to be certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency (NRC). Denny stayed with Triconex through the struggling years, the IPO, and the sale of Triconex to a British holding company, then called Siebe.
When he hired a Technical trainer who later would become the training manager, he told his new hire about an automation guru named Jim Pinto whose industry insights were being circulated on new web based technologies like email and blogs. Mr. Pinto was more a futurist than a historian, and many corporate executives were clearly unhappy with his sharp wit and predictions, particularly when it effected their quarterly bonuses. Mr. Pinto also had a history with Siebe, having sold his dynamic company Action Instruments to them. Jim published books and kept circulating his insights, at Triconex today there are Jim Pinto signed books in many of the engineering cubicles.
Denny died from Alzheimer's in 2007. He remained friends with Wonderware co-founders Phil Huber and Dennis Morin. The later built a Fellini-esque bungalow in Laguna Beach known as the Rock House. It listed for 16 million when it was put up for sale after Mr. Morin died on the last day of 2012. Triconex and Wonderware of course, ceased to exist as independent companies in the 1990's, but their brands live on. Phil Huber continues to be a technology wizard for startups, the latest being Philadelphia based Thingworx, headed by former Wonderware executive Rick Bullota.
The dawn of automation occurred in Paris at the beginning of the 19th century. At the height of the space age, an MIT trained physicist named Dick Morley built the modern Programmable Logic Controller. During the Apollo program, a TMR based system was aboard a Saturn booster rocket. The next time a TMR based system was in the air was some 20 years later, hoisted by Tricon architect Gary Hufton and Phil Huber among others, as Triconex employees loaded the first Tricon onto a truck to make its first commercial delivery in June, 1986. Today, Paris based Schneider-Electric owns Mr. Morley's former company, Modicon, as well as Triconex and Wonderware. The executive team from Schneider, including CEO Jean Pascal Tricoire, live in Hong Kong.
To paraphrase a French saying, the more things stay the same the more things change.
Gary Wilkinson
Triconex Training Manager
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