PI North America announces GE's Richard Carpenter as newest board member

The board voted unanimously to approve Carpenter and he will attend his first board meeting next month.PI North America, the non-profit trade organization for Profibus and Profinet technologies in North America, announced the appointment of Richard Carpenter from GE to its board of directors. Carpenter is the product general manager for GE Energy Connections’ automation and controls platforms.

The automation and controls business is headquartered in Charlottesville, Virginia, with worldwide distribution and deployment capability for its control system, operator interface, industrial PC, and Industrial Internet products. Carpenter is responsible for leading GE's automation controls strategy. Carpenter was chief of product strategy for GE Intelligent Platforms’ software and services business. He led GE IP’s overall portfolio plan, the technology strategy and the initiative to converge software and controls across GE. Carpenter will take over the seat vacated by Barry Lynch, now with GE Digital, who retired from the board.

“Rich has been at the forefront of GE’s Industrial Internet strategy from the beginning, and how their platform relies on PROFINET data.” said Michael Bryant, chairman of the board of PI North America. “His expertise will help us expand our efforts to bring the technologies to an even wider market.” Carpenter will join Phil Marshall of Hilscher, Raj Batra of Siemens and Michael Bryant on the board.