ISA Welcomes Peggie W. Koon as its 2014 President

In this position, Dr. Koon will work with Society leaders and staff to increase awareness of the value and relevance of the ISA brand and build on ISA’s proven range of capabilities and resources for automation professionals, which includes standards development, education, training, certification, publications, and technical symposia and conferences.

Dr. Koon is vice president of Audience at Chronicle Media and The Augusta Chronicle, which are part ofMorris Publishing Group, LLC, a privately held media company based in Augusta, Georgia, USA.

“I am extremely honored to serve as 2014 President of ISA, an organization which has contributed so much to both my professional and personal growth,” says Dr. Koon. “This is an exciting time for ISA; the Society is well positioned to secure new opportunities amid a highly changing world economy and global automation community.

“New and emerging technologies not only have facilitated the ability to offer automation solutions around the world, but have also changed many of the roles, responsibilities and needs of the automation professional,” she indicates. “ISA is committed to staying on the leading edge of these technological advances and global changes—to be a critical enabler—both for automation professionals to meet professional requirements and achieve career goals, and for manufacturers and other industry organizations to improve operational reliability, profitability, safety and security.”

Dr. Koon assumed her first leadership position (Membership Chair of ISA’s Management Division) within ISA in 1996. Since that time, she has held a variety of prominent roles in the Society, including:

• Director, ISA Management Division
• Vice President, ISA Industries & Sciences Department
• Vice Chair, ISA Board of Department Vice Presidents
• Society-level Committee Member, ISA Finance and Conference & Exhibit Global Oversight
• Society-level Committee Member, Honors & Awards  
• ISA Executive Board and Executive Committee Member

Dr. Koon’s media career began in 2006 at Morris Digital Works (MDW), where she worked on strategic audience and revenue initiatives. She became deputy chief operating officer of the delivery division for MDW and also served as the corporate director of strategy, partnership development and management for Morris Communications and Morris Publishing Group.

Prior to joining Morris, Dr. Koon spent more than 25 years leading the development of IT systems for process automation and process control in a variety of industries—automotive, nuclear defense, aerospace, nuclear reprocessing, thermal ceramics and textiles.

Dr. Koon earned a bachelor of arts in mathematics from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. She completed graduate studies in industrial and systems engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia and received a doctorate degree in management information systems from Kennedy Western University in Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA.