Walt has more than 40 years of experience in the automation industry, including Executive Committee experience in three companies, and board of directors service in both for-profit and not-for-profit companies. Walt was a member of the Board of Directors of Cypress Envirosystems, and continues to maintain an advisory relationship with the company.Walt's knowledge of applied high technology in automation is unparalleled and encyclopedic. He has worked in nearly every manufacturing vertical, and with most manufacturing technologies.Walt is a Life Fellow of the International Society of Automation (ISA), and a member of IEEE. Walt is a Fellow of InstMC in the United Kingdom, and a Chartered Measurement and Control Technologist.Walt is principal in Spitzer and Boyes LLC, a technology consulting firm assisting companies to better market their products in manufacturing and automation. Spitzer and Boyes provides industry analysis, market research, content generation and provisioning, forensic engineering, technology transfer and technical due diligence for mergers and acquisitions.Walt was Editor-in-Chief of CONTROL magazine and controlglobal.com from 2003 to 2013, the longest serving editor in that post. During that period the magazine and website won numerous awards.Walt is the Editor of the _Industrial Automation and Process Control INSIDER_, which is published by Spitzer and Boyes LLC. Walt is also a freelance author, and acts as a freelance acquisitions editor for Instrumentation and Automation texts.Walt was also Associate Editor and Marketing Director for "Jim Baen's Universe" magazine (www.baensuniverse.com) a noble experiment in e-publishing that is now closed. He served on the Editorial Board of the "Grantville Gazette," an emagazine that is part of the 1632verse alternate history project. From 2016 to 2022 he was Chief Editor of Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire Press.Walt has published professionally in the science fiction field, and is a member of SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.Specialties: industry analyst, editor, publisher, forensic engineering, mergers and acquisition, trade magazines, new media, automation systems, field instrumentation and controls, networking, wireless, Manufacturing Execution Systems, distributed control systems, wireless worker, podcasting, webcasting, Web 2.0, social media, and advanced control.