Greetings from the AACC President

On behalf of the American Automatic Control Council (AACC), I am pleased to welcome all participants to the 2014 American Control Conference. It´s been over three decades since the first ACC was held (in Arlington, Virginia, 1982) and since then the annual conference has become an established, selective international event covering all aspects of research and development in control systems. ACCs now attract around 1,300 participants representing academia (including graduate students), industry, and government organizations. Only a slim majority of the attendees are from the United States. The centerpiece of the conference is the technical program, and this year´s ACC will feature about 1,000 presentations on developments in diverse areas of control, theoretical as well as applied. Also on offer are pre-conference workshops, special and “micro” sessions on technical and other topics, exhibits and recruitment opportunities, and the AACC Awards Ceremony. The action spills over into the hallways and break areas too, where professional connections and friendships are made and renewed, collaboration prospects broached and firmed up, and much “catching up” undertaken. It´s hard to do any of these things well within the e-cocoons in which we seem to spend so much of our work (and personal) lives - you´ll be glad you came!