LAS VEGAS -- Lockheed Martin engineer Don Dupriest yesterday became the newest inductee to the IPC Raymond E. Pritchard Hall of Fame.

The award recognizes extraordinary contributions to IPC and the electronic interconnect industry, volunteer service on standards development committees and exceptional lifetime achievement. Named for IPC's first executive director, it is the trade group's highest honor.

For nearly 40 years, Dupriest has been providing his expertise to Lockheed Martin and for nearly 25, he has been lending his expertise to IPC. Among his contributions, he has chaired the IPC D-30 Rigid Printed Board Committee and is current co-chair of the IPC D-35 Printed Board Storage and Handling Subcommittee. He is also a past recipient of the IPC President’s Award, and a past chair and current member of the IPC Technical Activities Executive Committee.

Dupriest is a subject-matter expert in production operations for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control in Dallas. In his role, he provides leadership in interconnect technology development for electronic manufacturing and is responsible for advanced technology, process development and product manufacturability for electronic systems. And when he’s not directly supporting a program, Dupriest can be found leading various working group initiatives in the newly formed Corporate Leadership Forum for Electronics Engineering and Packaging. These working groups focus on design, lead-free technology and sourcing.

“When I look back I know I have left my footprints all over several standards and I’m very proud of this," Dupriest said. "I always try to write requirements first in light of the technology and always in light of all parties impacted. Then the committee does the rest; it’s truly a team effort. As a leader, it’s all about being able to mediate a common solution with inclusion that is good for all (users and suppliers). Perhaps my greatest contribution was to just seed technical content for discussion and provide a starting point for the standards that I worked on.”