EMAIL INTERVIEW - Michael R. Wilson & Ken Sinclair

Michael R. Wilson, Account Sales Engineer, OEMctrl
Marketing Chair, BACnet International

Currently serving as the Chair of the Marketing Committee for BACnet International, Michael has been an employee of Automated Logic since 2003 and presently works as an Account Sales Engineer for the OEMctrl division. Prior to OEMctrl, Michael was the Business Development and Strategic Planning manager at Lumisys for five years. While at Lumisys Michael received BACnet International's “2008 Volunteer of the Year Award" for his efforts as Marketing Committee Chair.

Michael has a strategy and information technology background and served as the presentation consultant to CIOs of Delta Air Lines and The Home Depot for periods of 3 and 1 years, respectively.

What’s New with BACnet International?

Quite a bit actually.

Sinclair:  We last spoke at Connectivity Week in June, what’s been happening with BACnet International since then?

Wilson:  Quite a bit actually.

We just had the 2009 PlugFest  interoperability workshop at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel in Atlanta, GA. This is the event’s tenth year. Manufacturers of BACnet products were invited to test their BACnet products with BACnet devices from other vendors in a vendor neutral environment. Forty six teams, eighty six BACnet engineers representing thirty eight different companies attended the workshop and improved their BACnet implementations and testing methods.

BACnet Test Laboratories (BTL) expanded its testing and certification capabilities to BACnet Operator Workstation. Five BACnet workstations have completed testing and have been awarded the BTL Mark. The workstations were tested in parallel and the BTL test package was recently extended to cover BACnet testing for devices that meet the criteria for one of the three levels of operating system testing; Advanced Workstation (B-AWS), Operator Workstation (B-OWS) and Operator Display (B-OD) profiles.

Facility Decisions Conference and Expo 2009 was held in September at Las Vegas Convention Center. BACnet International selected Trade Press, publishers of Building Operating Management magazine, as our new trade show partner and, by all accounts, this show was a success. We also took time at the show to recognize some outstanding volunteers.

Sinclair:  Who was recognized and for what?

Wilson:  Roy Kolasa, Honeywell, received the 2009 Volunteer of the Year award. Roy has been an active and engaged member of the marketing committee since its inception and recently accepted the position as BACnet International’s Education Committee Chair. Roy has been instrumental in content for presentations at conferences as well as a driving force in overall marketing committee activities.

Ben Dorsey, KMC Controls, received the Cornerstone Award. Ben, a member of the Marketing Committee, leads the publications sub-committee. This group is presently focused on the new BACnet International Journal, Cornerstones – Building Better with BACnet. This quarterly publication is slated to have its first issue in January 2010, in time for the AHR Expo.

Kent Gorrie, Reliable Controls, received the Scarlet Pimpernel Award in appreciation of for his tireless efforts and outstanding contributions to the BACnet International Web site and community. We thought long on hard on this award title and it seemed to fit Kent as phrase “The Scarlet Pimpernel” is typically used to describe someone that is everywhere, often when you least expect them. This definitely describes Kent’s level of engagement and contribution to the BACnet International community.

Steve Bushby, NIST, received the Distinguished Service Award. Steve has been involved with BACnet since 1987, more or less continuously. He served as secretary of the BACnet committee for 8.5 years, during the time of its drafting, as it grew to its initial 512 page length. He then served as vice-chair for five years and then as chair for five years. He has been chairing BACnet International’s steering committee since the beginning. He has also served, and is still serving, as the convener of the ISO working group that is responsible for the international standardization of BACnet. I can't think of anyone whose cumulative contributions to BACnet come anywhere close to Steve's.

Sinclair:  You indicated that the BACnet International Marketing Committee was busy. What have they been up to?

Wilson: Yes, the Marketing Committee has been very busy. In addition to the efforts already discussed, the BACnet International Marketing Committee updated our membership recruitment collateral and the BACnet International web site. We launched a new program that showcases successful BACnet stories and highlights the versatility of the BACnet Protocol in real-world installations. BACnet Success Stories, located on the BACnet International web site, allows anyone to share their BACnet integrations from around the world. We also kicked off a new sub-committee, the Social Media sub-committee. Lead by Brian Veach of Alerton, this team launched our BACnet International facebook page, is twittering about BACnet happenings, posting on the LinkedIn BACnet forum, and examining other social media vectors to get the word out about BACnet.

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