Russ’ career began at Westinghouse Electric where he developed real-time software for fossil and nuclear power plants. He next joined the Foxboro Company, leading human machine interface (HMI) product development for the Foxboro Intelligent Architecture series distributed control system, before starting ICONICS in 1986. Wanting to take advantage of the emerging PC-based automation market, and to create off-the-shelf HMI and SCADA software for factory automation, Russ recognized that OPC was central to the future of automation and led ICONICS to produce the first commercially available HMI/SCADA, "OPC-to-the-Core"-based product. ICONICS has greatly contributed to the success of the OPC Foundation with Russ serving as a member of the foundation’s Board of Directors, as well as its marketing chairman.