The field of intelligent control has witnessed remarkable growth recently. Two main trends fuel this surge: our increasing understanding of how biological systems operate and astounding advances in computer technology. Together, these advances encourage the development of the field of intelligent control by providing alternative strategies for designing and implementing controllers for dynamical systems. As remarkable as this growth has been, development of the resulting intelligent controllers still fits within the conventional engineering methodology for the construction of control systems. Thus, effective intelligent control research requires a team of investigators, well grounded in the theory and application of conventional control methods. The Control Research Laboratory at Ohio State's Department of Electrical Engineering is one such group. The article includes some of the major players at the CRL and gives an overview of the work going on there.