Russel J. Kerkman received his BSEE in 1971, his MSEE in 1973, and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1976, all from Purdue. He started his industrial career at General Electric Corporate Research and Development in Schenectady, New York, developing high powered commutated drive systems, buried magnet ac motor applications, and electromechanical vibration testers.

In 1980 he joined the Allen-Bradley Company/Rockwell as a senior project engineer and contributed to the development of advanced current regulated pulse width modulated controllers applied to voltage source converters. This led to the co-authoring of the U.S. and foreign patents, "Cross Couple Current Regulator." As a principal engineer with Rockwell's $320 million Automation Business Unit, he made significant contributions to the development of controllers, extending the voltage range of voltage source inverters. His work in the application of adaptive control to ac induction motor inverter drives provided one of the first self-controlled adaptive motor inverter drives and a U.S. patent "Slip Control Based on Sensing Voltage to an Induction Motor." His contribution as a senior principal engineer to the industrial drive industry addressed the troubling areas of electromagnetic interference, in particular the adverse effects on motor bearings, motor terminal overvoltages, and sensor response. As a consulting engineer, his present responsibilities include identification of critical technologies affecting near and long-term ac drive and drive system performance, system analysis and commissioning procedures, and interaction of power devices and load impedance.

Kerkman holds or co-holds 24 U.S. and/or foreign patents for ac industrial drives and is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and serves on the graduate student review committees at Marquette University. In 1998 he was inducted into the National Corporate Inventors Society at the 1998 National Salute to Corporate Inventors in Akron, Ohio.