SAN DIEGO – Veteran PCB designer and fabricator Gary Ferrari today became the newest inductee of the IPC Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the annual IPC Apex Expo trade show. 

Currently director of technical support for Firan Technology Group, Ferrari has spent nearly his entire career working on or leading industry standards development efforts. He is perhaps best-known as a cofounder of the IPC Designers Council, for which he was executive director from 1994 to 2001, and continues to chair the executive board. 

As chairman of the IPC Printed Board Design Committee, Ferrari led the effort to convert the industry from the widely used mil standards, particularly MIL-STD-275, to commercial equivalents. He chaired the task group that wrote IPC-D-275, the precursor to the current IPC-2221 and IPC-2222 standards for PCB design. Ferrari was also a mainstay on the board qualification standard, IPC-RB-276, and its successors, IPC-6011 and IPC-6012. He was elected chairman of the IPC Technical Activities Executive Committee, the board that oversees all IPC standards activity, and served a two-year term.

He received the IPC Presidents Award in 1990 for his efforts on the design and bare board standards.

Ferrari has also written numerous technical articles, and has provided DfM consulting services to the industry.  In the 1990s, he spearheaded the IPC PWB Designers Certification Program, which has trained and recognized nearly 2,000 designers worldwide to date.

Ferrari is the 33d person inducted to the IPC Hall.