Rainer Faller has over 20 years of professional experience. His expertise is in the areas of international standards application and safety instrumentation systems. He has extensive experience in pipelines, chemical industry applications, machinery applications and power plant applications. He was formerly Business Unit Manager of TÜV Product Service IQSE (Automation, Software and Electronics). Mr. Faller has developed this group into a significant business unit while at the same time developing and promoting the entire concept of third party safety certification across the world. Mr. Faller’s signature is on most of the equipment safety certifications in the world. Mr. Faller is widely recognized as the world’s top safety and reliability expert. He is frequently sought after for speaking engagements and has published many of the technical papers used as reference in this technical community. He is chairman of the German DIN committee on “Computers in safety systems and applications” Mr. Faller has earned the Dipl.-Ing. from Technische Universität München.
Stephan Aschenbrenner has over seven years of experience and extensive knowledge in the safety and reliability field. After graduating from University, he began working for Gustav Klein where he was responsible for software and hardware of programmable electronic systems. In 1995, he joined TUV Product Service GmbH where he became responsible for machinery safety devices. In 1998, Aschenbrenner joined TUV Product Service Inc. in the USA to set up a functional safety department for the Americas. During this time he became Business Unit Manager of "Automation, Software, and Electronics" at TUV Product Service. This position provided him with worldwide responsibility. In 2000, Aschenbrenner joined exida.com as an employee and has recently been named a partner.
Peter Mueller has over 15 years of experience and extensive knowledge in the safety and reliability field.
After graduating in 1992 from the University of Applied Sciences in Mannheim,
he began working for TUV Südwest where he developed the measurement and control software for the automated EMC test equipment.
During this time, Mueller started to work in the field of functional safety, electrical safety and environmental testing at TUV Südwest.
He was qualified as ISO 9000 auditor. In 1997, after the merge of TUV Südwest and TUV Bayern to TUV Süddeutschland ,
he moved to the department IQSE, the Institute for Quality and Safety in Electronics, as a Senior Project Manager.
In the beginning of 2000, r Mueller became Department Manager at IQSE with the responsibility of the German market.
In late 2000, he overtook the worldwide responsibility.
In 2001, Mueller overtook in addition the technical leadership of the department for electronic systems and devices in the
automotive section of TUV Süddeutschland.
In 2002, he joined exida GmbH in Germany, and in 2007 he was named as an exida partner.
Rolf Spiker has over 40 years experience in Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) used in the Petrochemical and Oil & Gas Exploration and Production industries. He has fulfilled a wide variety of functions within the Yokogawa System Center Europe organization and preceding companies and was heavily involved in the development of the companies Safety Systems and has two Safety Systems patents on his name. Via electronic development engineer, project manager, sales engineer/manager, marketing manager, managing director of the Safety Systems group in the Netherlands, president of the US safety systems office, he finished his career as 'Senior Safety Consultant' in the Yokogawa SCE company. In this activity, Mr. Spiker has established a new safety patent for the use of Neural Networks in Instrumented Safety Systems and has written and co-authored several articles about safety systems and their application in the industry. He was also involved in many presentations for the Instrument Society of America, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, WIB and Botlek group.
Jon Keswick has more than 15 years of professional experience working in various control, automation and instrumentation vendor companies. His expertise includes in-depth knowledge of safety standards, with specific focus on safety instrumented systems and related equipment employed in the process sector. This includes applications in Oil and Gas, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals and Power generation industries. Jon was instrumental in the successful uptake of programmable electronic systems employed in safety related applications during the mid to late 90's across Europe and the Middle East, and worked in a senior lead technical role for a safety system vendor during much of this period. He comes directly from a role which involved international responsibility for the setup and development of a process safety business stream within a major international system vendor, and brings in-depth knowledge about the market, products and systems employed in safety related applications.
David Hatch has 20 years Design, Commissioning, Operating and Consulting experience in the Oil & Gas, Pharmaceutical and Chemical industries. This experience covers blue-chip operating companies (BP, Shell & GSK), major multinational engineering contractors (Jacobs, Foster Wheeler & Stone & Webster) and system suppliers (Emerson Process Management) Mr Hatch has a BSc(Hons) in Chemical and Process Engineering, is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers in the UK and an IChemE Registered Safety Professional. He is a member of the IChemE Safety & Loss Prevention Subject Group and a specialist in Process Automation, Hazard Analysis and Alarm Management; authoring and presenting papers on these key subjects".
Mats Gunnmarker has more than 20 years of professional experience working in various companies with hardware and software design, development and test, control and safety system engineering as well as certification. With over 10 years of experience in safety and high availability system architectures, safety concepts and design he joined exida.com as a partner in 2007. Mats Gunnmarker has three patents related to safety system design on his name and is member of the Norwegian Electrotechnical Committee for standardization, NEK.
Mats Gunnmarker has a M.Sc. in Electrical engineering from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.
William Goble has over 30 years of professional experience. He is widely recognized as an expert in programmable electronic systems analysis, safety and high availability automation systems, automation systems new product development and market analysis. He developed many of the techniques used for probabilistic evaluation of safety and high availability automation systems. He was formerly Director, Critical Systems at a successful North American safety company. His principal work responsibilities included strategic planning, market analysis, promotion and business management. Dr. Goble previously held positions in research and development including computer design, software design and development, engineering project management and marketing. Dr. Goble also teaches reliability engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written two widely used books on topics of safety and reliability modeling including "Control Systems Safety Evaluation and Reliability," available on the exida.com website. He teaches many of the exida.com courses and ES35, an ISA professional course on safety and reliability. He is a fellow member of ISA. He has published many papers and magazine articles. Dr. Goble has a BSEE from Penn State, a MSEE from Villanova and a PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
John Grebe has over 26 years of experience in industrial and medical instrumentation. He has a wide breadth of experience encompassing New Product Development (both hardware and software), Manufacturing Engineering, Manufacturing Test, Quality Control, Process Definition, Process Improvement, Field Service and Customer Support and specializes in services and products to assist companies in cost effective development of safety-related products. He was formerly the Senior Director of Product Development for a firm creating decision support software for the Chemical Process Industries. Previous experience also includes over 10 years with a North American firm in the process control industry holding a variety of positions including Director of Systems Engineering, which he founded, and Director of Embedded Products. As an engineer his areas of expertise include functional safety, low-level analog signal acquisition, microprocessors and software architecture. Additional industry experience includes flow meter design for an industry leader. He holds nine U.S. patents on products in the process control industry. Mr. Grebe has taught for the ISA professional courses on safety and reliability. He also teaches topics in Engineering Management as an Adjunct Instructor for Drexel University's Masters Program in Engineering Management. Mr. Grebe has a BSEE and a MSEE from Drexel University and a MBA from Villanova University.
Iwan van Beurden is the director of engineering at exida. He supports exida’s End-user services, exida’s Manufacturer services, and exida certification activities and has over 11 years professional experience in the Safety Instrumented System field. Iwan is responsible for the development, maintenance, and certification of the exSILentia integrated Safety Lifecycle tool, combining SILect, SIF SRS, and SILver. He performs IEC 61508 development support, Functional Safety Assessments, a variety of reliability analyses, SIL Selections and SIL Verifications. He also performs process gap analyses to determine the level of effort companies need to undertake for compliance with IEC 61508 or IEC 61511. Iwan gives training for exida and is also an ISA instructor. He previously worked for Yokogawa Industrial Safety Systems in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. He worked both in the R&D and in the Operations department as a Safety Assessment specialist. He was involved with the implementation of IEC 61508 within Yokogawa Industrial Safety Systems dealing with SIS reliability calculations and the safety education of engineers. Iwan is a member of ISA. He has published various papers and magazine articles. He is a Certified Functional Safety Expert and holds a Master of Science degree from Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, where he majored in reliability engineering and graduated cum laude.
Mr. Miller has over 17 years of experience in process instrumentation, control and automation, safety instrumented systems design and project execution with several large corporations in the Gulf Region including Honeywell, Exxon, and Siemens. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and is currently the ISA - Bluebonnet (Austin & San Antonio) President.
Mr. O'Brien has 20 years experience in the design, manufacturing and marketing of process automation, reserve power systems, and safety related equipment. He is currently the Director of Business Development with exida. In this role, he focuses on supporting new and existing customers with their implementation of the IEC 61508 and S84 / IEC 61511 functional safety standards as well as reliability analysis for mechanical devices. He was formerly Vice President of the Power Systems Business Unit of C&D Technologies, a business that specialized in the design and implementation of high reliability back up power systems. Prior to that, he was with Moore Products / Siemens Energy and Automation where he held several positions including General Manager of the Instrumentation Division. Chris has been awarded 5 patents, including a patent of the industry's first safety rated pressure transmitter. He has a Bachelors of Mechanical Engineering from Villanova University.
John Cusimano is director of exida’s security services division. A process automation safety systems expert with more than twenty years of experience, John leads a team devoted to improving the security of control systems for companies worldwide. Prior to joining exida, John led market development for Siemens’ process automation and safety products and held various product marketing positions at Moore Products Co. John started his career at Eastman Kodak Company, where he implemented and managed automation projects. John has a B.S. degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Clarkson University and holds a CFSE certification.
Mr. Kozma has over twenty years of experience in process control and automation, safety instrumentation systems design and project execution. Kozma is a Senior Safety Specialist with exida and responsible for process safety and safety instrumented design and verification projects. In his current position, he has solid experience in SIS implementation projects for a variety of process plants, with special emphasis in
the Western Canadian Oil & Gas Sector. Mr. Kozma has worked with several engineering and operating companies where he successfully implemented several projects including pipeline safety, burner management, and SIS. Mr. Kozma has a diploma in Electrical Engineering echnology from the
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. He is also a Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE).
David Fournier has over 35 years’ design analysis, control system product and application, and safety system experience in the nuclear industry, primarily in Canada but also in the U.S. and overseas. Because of his use of 61508 concepts in nuclear applications, Mr. Fournier joined exida as partner after retiring from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, where he had been Principal Engineer (I&C), and company expert in real-time system design, categorisation (nuclear equivalent of SIL selection) and project manager for various large software projects. Mr. Fournier was a key design leader for control and safety systems currently operating in more than 12 CANDU plants, 5 BWRs and 4 PWRs.
Since joining exida, he has coached manufacturers to develop programs and products to readiness for certification, and participated in numerous SIL determinations and SIL verifications per 61508/61511.
Mr. Fournier holds a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Science and M.A.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto. He is a Professional Engineer, registered in the Province of Ontario, and Certified Functional Safety Expert.
He is currently a Canadian delegate to the IEC TC45A Committee, member of WGA3 and WGA7, and chairing one of the working parties in WGA7. (These committees are responsible for standards such as IEC 61513, 61226 and 62138.)
Alejandro Esparza has over 18 years of experience in process instrumentation, control and automation, safety instrumented systems design and project execution. In his current role, he supports exida’s end-user services for the process industry, like hazard & risk analysis, SIL selection, SIL verification and SIS validation; he also gives training for exida. He previously worked for Foxboro & Moore Products. He is a graduate of La Salle University in Electro-Mechanical Engineering. He is a Certified Functional Safety Expert.
Eric Byres is a senior partner in Byres Research, which merged with exida in March 2009, and CTO of Byres Security. One of the world’s leading experts in critical infrastructure security, Eric has been responsible for numerous standards, best practices and innovations for control systems security. Eric’s work spans academic and industry domains. As the founder of the BCIT Critical Infrastructure Security Centre, he shaped it into one of North America's leading academic facilities in the field of SCADA cyber security. At the same time, Eric has provided guidance to government security agencies and consulted with major energy companies on cyber protection for critical infrastructures. Eric is the chair of the ISA SP99 Security Technologies Working Group and the Canadian representative for IEC TC65/WG13, a standards effort focusing on an international framework for the protection of process facilities from cyber attack.
Bob Webb is a Senior Research Associate with more than 35 years of experience leading design, construction and operation support activities for fossil, geothermal, and nuclear power plants. Bob’s experience ranges from control loop stability and measurement error analyses, to selection of valves and flow measuring equipment, to SCADA systems built from Ethernet communications among networks of disparate DCSs and PLCs. Recognizing the need to provide security for automation systems, Bob has authored and led ISA’s control systems security activities since their inception in 2002. Bob holds B.S. degrees in Physics and Electronics Engineering from California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, and is a registered Electrical, Mechanical, and Control Systems Engineer. He is a past President of ISA’s Northern California Section, Managing Director of ISA SP99 (ISA’s Manufacturing and Control Systems Security Standards Committee), and past Vice President of ISA’s Standards and Practices Department and Web Activities Department.
Marjorie Widmeyer is a Senior Research Associate with more than 35 years of experience in refineries, chemical plants, and fossil, geothermal, and nuclear power plants, where she has performed and led design, construction and operations support activities. Her experience ranges from control loop design and upgrades (including selection and procurement of all types of equipment) to plant electrical systems, variable speed drive applications, procedure development and safety programs. Marjorie holds a B.S. degree in Mathematics from California State University, San Bernardino, an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Washington State University, and an M.S. degree in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. She is a past Vice President of ISA’s Standards and Practices Department and a member of ISA’s Manufacturing and Control Systems Standards Committee, SP99.
Eric W. Scharpf has been a partner with exida since it was founded in 2000 and is based out of Dunedin, New Zealand. He has 20 years of professional experience in the chemical processing industry. Dr. Scharpf is recognized as an expert in the analysis phases of the safety lifecycle. He has led a wide variety of projects in both chemical processing and machine automation including ammonium nitrate production, gas pipelines, specialty chemicals, petrochemicals, automated loading systems, robotic vehicles and welders. In addition to project work, Dr. Scharpf has taken a special interest in safety engineering training and personnel competency. He writes and leads many of the exida training courses for SIS users throughout the Asia-Pacific region and serves on the Board of Directors of the CFSE Governance Board. He also has extensive experience in chemical process efficiency analysis and improvement, developing several of the cryogenic gas processing and separation techniques currently used for hydrogen, synthesis gas, and power generation. He has authored more than 15 US and international patents as well as numerous journal articles, conference publications and co-authored the best selling ISA text, Safety Integrity Level Selection. In addition to his exida work, he teaches process optimization and energy management at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Dr. Scharpf has a B.Ch.E. from the University of Delaware, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University, both in the USA.
Mr. Tavener-Smith has over 20 years of professional experience. He has for the past 15 years been involved in the design, engineering and supply of safety related systems for process industries. For the past 7 years he has been a member of the senior management team of one of the leading suppliers of safety related systems globally. His former position was Divisional Manager, responsible for the strategic direction and operations for the Sub-Saharan African region supplying safety related systems and solutions. Mr Tavener-Smith also lectures process safety engineering at the University of KwaZulu Natal.
Rainer Faller has over 20 years of professional experience. His expertise is in the areas of international standards application and safety instrumentation systems. He has extensive experience in pipelines, chemical industry applications, machinery applications and power plant applications. He was formerly Business Unit Manager of TÜV Product Service IQSE (Automation, Software and Electronics). Mr. Faller has developed this group into a significant business unit while at the same time developing and promoting the entire concept of third party safety certification across the world. Mr. Faller’s signature is on most of the equipment safety certifications in the world. Mr. Faller is widely recognized as the world’s top safety and reliability expert. He is frequently sought after for speaking engagements and has published many of the technical papers used as reference in this technical community. He is chairman of the German DIN committee on “Computers in safety systems and applications” Mr. Faller has earned the Dipl.-Ing. from Technische Universität München.
Stephan Aschenbrenner has over seven years of experience and extensive knowledge in the safety and reliability field. After graduating from University, he began working for Gustav Klein where he was responsible for software and hardware of programmable electronic systems. In 1995, he joined TUV Product Service GmbH where he became responsible for machinery safety devices. In 1998, Aschenbrenner joined TUV Product Service Inc. in the USA to set up a functional safety department for the Americas. During this time he became Business Unit Manager of "Automation, Software, and Electronics" at TUV Product Service. This position provided him with worldwide responsibility. In 2000, Aschenbrenner joined exida.com as an employee and has recently been named a partner.
Peter Mueller has over 15 years of experience and extensive knowledge in the safety and reliability field.
After graduating in 1992 from the University of Applied Sciences in Mannheim,
he began working for TUV Südwest where he developed the measurement and control software for the automated EMC test equipment.
During this time, Mueller started to work in the field of functional safety, electrical safety and environmental testing at TUV Südwest.
He was qualified as ISO 9000 auditor. In 1997, after the merge of TUV Südwest and TUV Bayern to TUV Süddeutschland ,
he moved to the department IQSE, the Institute for Quality and Safety in Electronics, as a Senior Project Manager.
In the beginning of 2000, r Mueller became Department Manager at IQSE with the responsibility of the German market.
In late 2000, he overtook the worldwide responsibility.
In 2001, Mueller overtook in addition the technical leadership of the department for electronic systems and devices in the
automotive section of TUV Süddeutschland.
In 2002, he joined exida GmbH in Germany, and in 2007 he was named as an exida partner.
Rolf Spiker has over 40 years experience in Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) used in the Petrochemical and Oil & Gas Exploration and Production industries. He has fulfilled a wide variety of functions within the Yokogawa System Center Europe organization and preceding companies and was heavily involved in the development of the companies Safety Systems and has two Safety Systems patents on his name. Via electronic development engineer, project manager, sales engineer/manager, marketing manager, managing director of the Safety Systems group in the Netherlands, president of the US safety systems office, he finished his career as 'Senior Safety Consultant' in the Yokogawa SCE company. In this activity, Mr. Spiker has established a new safety patent for the use of Neural Networks in Instrumented Safety Systems and has written and co-authored several articles about safety systems and their application in the industry. He was also involved in many presentations for the Instrument Society of America, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, WIB and Botlek group.
Jon Keswick has more than 15 years of professional experience working in various control, automation and instrumentation vendor companies. His expertise includes in-depth knowledge of safety standards, with specific focus on safety instrumented systems and related equipment employed in the process sector. This includes applications in Oil and Gas, Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals and Power generation industries. Jon was instrumental in the successful uptake of programmable electronic systems employed in safety related applications during the mid to late 90's across Europe and the Middle East, and worked in a senior lead technical role for a safety system vendor during much of this period. He comes directly from a role which involved international responsibility for the setup and development of a process safety business stream within a major international system vendor, and brings in-depth knowledge about the market, products and systems employed in safety related applications.
Mats Gunnmarker has more than 20 years of professional experience working in various companies with hardware and software design, development and test, control and safety system engineering as well as certification. With over 10 years of experience in safety and high availability system architectures, safety concepts and design he joined exida.com as a partner in 2007. Mats Gunnmarker has three patents related to safety system design on his name and is member of the Norwegian Electrotechnical Committee for standardization, NEK.
Mats Gunnmarker has a M.Sc. in Electrical engineering from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.
William Goble has over 30 years of professional experience. He is widely recognized as an expert in programmable electronic systems analysis, safety and high availability automation systems, automation systems new product development and market analysis. He developed many of the techniques used for probabilistic evaluation of safety and high availability automation systems. He was formerly Director, Critical Systems at a successful North American safety company. His principal work responsibilities included strategic planning, market analysis, promotion and business management. Dr. Goble previously held positions in research and development including computer design, software design and development, engineering project management and marketing. Dr. Goble also teaches reliability engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written two widely used books on topics of safety and reliability modeling including "Control Systems Safety Evaluation and Reliability," available on the exida.com website. He teaches many of the exida.com courses and ES35, an ISA professional course on safety and reliability. He is a fellow member of ISA. He has published many papers and magazine articles. Dr. Goble has a BSEE from Penn State, a MSEE from Villanova and a PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, Netherlands.
John Grebe has over 26 years of experience in industrial and medical instrumentation. He has a wide breadth of experience encompassing New Product Development (both hardware and software), Manufacturing Engineering, Manufacturing Test, Quality Control, Process Definition, Process Improvement, Field Service and Customer Support and specializes in services and products to assist companies in cost effective development of safety-related products. He was formerly the Senior Director of Product Development for a firm creating decision support software for the Chemical Process Industries. Previous experience also includes over 10 years with a North American firm in the process control industry holding a variety of positions including Director of Systems Engineering, which he founded, and Director of Embedded Products. As an engineer his areas of expertise include functional safety, low-level analog signal acquisition, microprocessors and software architecture. Additional industry experience includes flow meter design for an industry leader. He holds nine U.S. patents on products in the process control industry. Mr. Grebe has taught for the ISA professional courses on safety and reliability. He also teaches topics in Engineering Management as an Adjunct Instructor for Drexel University's Masters Program in Engineering Management. Mr. Grebe has a BSEE and a MSEE from Drexel University and a MBA from Villanova University.
Iwan van Beurden is the director of engineering at exida. He supports exida’s End-user services, exida’s Manufacturer services, and exida certification activities and has over 11 years professional experience in the Safety Instrumented System field. Iwan is responsible for the development, maintenance, and certification of the exSILentia integrated Safety Lifecycle tool, combining SILect, SIF SRS, and SILver. He performs IEC 61508 development support, Functional Safety Assessments, a variety of reliability analyses, SIL Selections and SIL Verifications. He also performs process gap analyses to determine the level of effort companies need to undertake for compliance with IEC 61508 or IEC 61511. Iwan gives training for exida and is also an ISA instructor. He previously worked for Yokogawa Industrial Safety Systems in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. He worked both in the R&D and in the Operations department as a Safety Assessment specialist. He was involved with the implementation of IEC 61508 within Yokogawa Industrial Safety Systems dealing with SIS reliability calculations and the safety education of engineers. Iwan is a member of ISA. He has published various papers and magazine articles. He is a Certified Functional Safety Expert and holds a Master of Science degree from Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, where he majored in reliability engineering and graduated cum laude.
Mr. Miller has over 17 years of experience in process instrumentation, control and automation, safety instrumented systems design and project execution with several large corporations in the Gulf Region including Honeywell, Exxon, and Siemens. He is a graduate of Texas A&M University with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and is currently the ISA - Bluebonnet (Austin & San Antonio) President.
Mr. O'Brien has 20 years experience in the design, manufacturing and marketing of process automation, reserve power systems, and safety related equipment. He is currently the Director of Business Development with exida. In this role, he focuses on supporting new and existing customers with their implementation of the IEC 61508 and S84 / IEC 61511 functional safety standards as well as reliability analysis for mechanical devices. He was formerly Vice President of the Power Systems Business Unit of C&D Technologies, a business that specialized in the design and implementation of high reliability back up power systems. Prior to that, he was with Moore Products / Siemens Energy and Automation where he held several positions including General Manager of the Instrumentation Division. Chris has been awarded 5 patents, including a patent of the industry's first safety rated pressure transmitter. He has a Bachelors of Mechanical Engineering from Villanova University.
John Cusimano is director of exida’s security services division. A process automation safety systems expert with more than twenty years of experience, John leads a team devoted to improving the security of control systems for companies worldwide. Prior to joining exida, John led market development for Siemens’ process automation and safety products and held various product marketing positions at Moore Products Co. John started his career at Eastman Kodak Company, where he implemented and managed automation projects. John has a B.S. degree in Electrical & Computer Engineering from Clarkson University and holds a CFSE certification.
Mr. Kozma has over twenty years of experience in process control and automation, safety instrumentation systems design and project execution. Kozma is a Senior Safety Specialist with exida and responsible for process safety and safety instrumented design and verification projects. In his current position, he has solid experience in SIS implementation projects for a variety of process plants, with special emphasis in
the Western Canadian Oil & Gas Sector. Mr. Kozma has worked with several engineering and operating companies where he successfully implemented several projects including pipeline safety, burner management, and SIS. Mr. Kozma has a diploma in Electrical Engineering echnology from the
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. He is also a Certified Functional Safety Expert (CFSE). 
Alejandro Esparza has over 18 years of experience in process instrumentation, control and automation, safety instrumented systems design and project execution. In his current role, he supports exida’s end-user services for the process industry, like hazard & risk analysis, SIL selection, SIL verification and SIS validation; he also gives training for exida. He previously worked for Foxboro & Moore Products. He is a graduate of La Salle University in Electro-Mechanical Engineering. He is a Certified Functional Safety Expert. 
Eric Byres is a senior partner in Byres Research, which merged with exida in March 2009, and CTO of Byres Security. One of the world’s leading experts in critical infrastructure security, Eric has been responsible for numerous standards, best practices and innovations for control systems security. Eric’s work spans academic and industry domains. As the founder of the BCIT Critical Infrastructure Security Centre, he shaped it into one of North America's leading academic facilities in the field of SCADA cyber security. At the same time, Eric has provided guidance to government security agencies and consulted with major energy companies on cyber protection for critical infrastructures. Eric is the chair of the ISA SP99 Security Technologies Working Group and the Canadian representative for IEC TC65/WG13, a standards effort focusing on an international framework for the protection of process facilities from cyber attack.
Bob Webb is a Senior Research Associate with more than 35 years of experience leading design, construction and operation support activities for fossil, geothermal, and nuclear power plants. Bob’s experience ranges from control loop stability and measurement error analyses, to selection of valves and flow measuring equipment, to SCADA systems built from Ethernet communications among networks of disparate DCSs and PLCs. Recognizing the need to provide security for automation systems, Bob has authored and led ISA’s control systems security activities since their inception in 2002. Bob holds B.S. degrees in Physics and Electronics Engineering from California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, and is a registered Electrical, Mechanical, and Control Systems Engineer. He is a past President of ISA’s Northern California Section, Managing Director of ISA SP99 (ISA’s Manufacturing and Control Systems Security Standards Committee), and past Vice President of ISA’s Standards and Practices Department and Web Activities Department.
Marjorie Widmeyer is a Senior Research Associate with more than 35 years of experience in refineries, chemical plants, and fossil, geothermal, and nuclear power plants, where she has performed and led design, construction and operations support activities. Her experience ranges from control loop design and upgrades (including selection and procurement of all types of equipment) to plant electrical systems, variable speed drive applications, procedure development and safety programs. Marjorie holds a B.S. degree in Mathematics from California State University, San Bernardino, an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Washington State University, and an M.S. degree in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. She is a past Vice President of ISA’s Standards and Practices Department and a member of ISA’s Manufacturing and Control Systems Standards Committee, SP99.
Eric W. Scharpf has been a partner with exida since it was founded in 2000 and is based out of Dunedin, New Zealand. He has 20 years of professional experience in the chemical processing industry. Dr. Scharpf is recognized as an expert in the analysis phases of the safety lifecycle. He has led a wide variety of projects in both chemical processing and machine automation including ammonium nitrate production, gas pipelines, specialty chemicals, petrochemicals, automated loading systems, robotic vehicles and welders. In addition to project work, Dr. Scharpf has taken a special interest in safety engineering training and personnel competency. He writes and leads many of the exida training courses for SIS users throughout the Asia-Pacific region and serves on the Board of Directors of the CFSE Governance Board. He also has extensive experience in chemical process efficiency analysis and improvement, developing several of the cryogenic gas processing and separation techniques currently used for hydrogen, synthesis gas, and power generation. He has authored more than 15 US and international patents as well as numerous journal articles, conference publications and co-authored the best selling ISA text, Safety Integrity Level Selection. In addition to his exida work, he teaches process optimization and energy management at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Dr. Scharpf has a B.Ch.E. from the University of Delaware, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University, both in the USA.
Mr. Tavener-Smith has over 20 years of professional experience. He has for the past 15 years been involved in the design, engineering and supply of safety related systems for process industries. For the past 7 years he has been a member of the senior management team of one of the leading suppliers of safety related systems globally. His former position was Divisional Manager, responsible for the strategic direction and operations for the Sub-Saharan African region supplying safety related systems and solutions. Mr Tavener-Smith also lectures process safety engineering at the University of KwaZulu Natal.
