Leader Under 40: Brett Beauregard

Director - Product Development, Control Station Inc. – BS Chemical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Concentration: Process Control

Control Engineering Staff

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Brett Beauregard, 33

Director – Product Development, Control Station Inc., www.controlstation.com

Tolland, Conn.

Academics

BS Chemical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Concentration: Process Control

Achievements

Beauregard is credited with Control Station’s patent-pending modeling of oscillatory process data, which eliminates the need for a steady-state condition prior to performing the bump tests typically associated with PID controller tuning. Because of its economic benefits, the innovation made a variety of distribution alliances possible for Control Station, including those with Rockwell Automation and Yokogawa. It earned Beauregard the 2011 UOP Technology Award granted by the International Society of Automation.

Over the past three years Beauregard has served as the lead engineer behind a growing suite of performance monitoring technologies. Control Station’s PlantESP solution, officially launched in November 2010, focuses on plant-wide PID controller performance. More recently, capabilities were expanded to include condition monitoring. Based on a data clustering algorithm patented by NASA, the new capability captures patterns of performance behavior and applies them to future production. The platform addresses real industry challenges with the end-user in mind.

Non-work-related activity

Beauregard enjoys outdoor grilling. Since work is never far from his mind, Beauregard has equipped his smoker with a homemade PID controller. Holding temperature to ± 1 degree may seem over the top, but he believes he can taste the difference.

Engineering-related activity

Beauregard blogs his tinkering experiences with the world. He’s listed dozens of DIY projects including several on the Arduino prototyping platform. His proudest contributions are, of course, control related: an open-source PID controller library with a detailed explanation of the same were both well received, according to Beauregard, and they have broadened the general understanding and use of PID control in the hobby arena. (View the blog at brettbeauregard.com/blog/.)

Interesting details

Beauregard started speaking Spanish at an early age, and usually is asked to take calls at the office from Spanish speakers. To keep things interesting, Beauregard started tracking the states (now 16) where he has had his hair cut while traveling on business.

Began interest

“When I was picking my major at UConn, I wanted the ability to touch on all of the things I liked: chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineering, as well as computer science. The interdisciplinary nature of controls made it an easy choice. In my short career, I’ve been able to draw on each of those disciplines in a meaningful way, and I think the broad nature of controls has helped me to be a multifaceted contributor.”

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