Dennis Morin passed away recently. Many of you may not know him or who he was. I only met him once or twice–and that was probably before I became an editor. He was described to me many times as the ultimate hippy who lived life to the fullest.
He was also a visionary and leader in the world of automation. He founded Wonderware in 1987 with Phil Huber and laid the foundation for the next 25 years and counting of manufacturing software. You see, he based Wonderware HMI/SCADA on Microsoft Windows. That was not only revolutionary, but seemingly crazy. Everyone was UNIX at the time. Who the heck was going to use those crazy PCs with that flaky operating system?? Well, today pretty much everyone.
The other thing Dennis did was to nurture the next generation of automation leaders. Between him and Ken Spenser, who was leading Texas Instruments in Johnson City, Tennessee at the time, almost the entire next generation of leaders was recruited, nurtured and sent out to spread the word. I think even more than the technology, this legacy was fantastic.
There is a great article in the Orange County Business Journal (where I got the picture).
For those of us that worked for Dennis, this was really sad news. He provided some memorable occasions – for me, that started with my initial job interview at Wonderware. Of course before that I had used Wonderware InTouch and liked it better than the DOS-based HMIs I had used before – FactoryLink, Intellution , and Wizcon. Speaking of memorable occasions, did Wonderware know how to throw a party?!