In this month’s column, I give kudos to our PCEA chapter liaison, who has been capturing the efforts of the PCEA to educate our members and our industry as a whole, then pass the mic to PCEA chairman Steph Chavez to provide some thoughts on taking charge of your career.
PCEA Updates
This month we highlight the work of PCEA’s Scott McCurdy, a tireless force for collaboration within the printed circuit engineering industry. Not only has McCurdy worked hard in the industry as director of sales & marketing for Freedom CAD Services in Orange County, CA, but for years he has worked as a leader in trade organizations specializing in educating their members.
Presently serving as PCEA’s chapter liaison and PCEA-Orange County chapter president, McCurdy coordinates all chapter leadership and inspires them to move in a consistent and helpful direction. Local PCEA chapters are actively planning their yearly itineraries to serve our industry. From the founding of PCEA throughout the pandemic of 2020, McCurdy has worked with chapter members and industry educators to create a PCEA YouTube channel to spread educational presentations: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTJc-ksUtG-vUPvu1hBe3hA.
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Read more: Taking Charge of Professional Development
Those who buy and specify every day have much to teach us about the industry.
Are you finding your place in the PCB industry? Are you feeling a bit disconnected from the rest of the world as you perform your PCB engineering job? Maybe you should consider joining a trade organization. Aligning and participating with a trade org that is well matched to your areas of expertise can be a monumental benefit to your career. It can put you in touch with others who can help you discover what you don’t know, but perhaps you’ve needed to know!
Our industry has many PCB engineering development groups and trade organizations. Finding the right ones to join may not be as easy as you think. Following some of the criteria PCB engineering quality assurance stakeholders use to find good products and services for their company makes it easier to narrow the list.
Many in the PCB engineering industry do not specify or qualify materials directly. But we might work closely with those who take part in qualifying the materials and manufacturers that are responsible for checking out and making important decisions regarding the quality of the materials or processes offered. It could be valuable to understand how these industry stakeholders of ours set up business relationships and roadmaps for moving forward.
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Get your skills in order, as the industry is ramping once more.
In this month’s column, I examine the PCB engineering job outlook and evaluate the career moves we are making. Next, I switch over to PCEA Chairman Steph Chavez, who points out important attributes our personal development should include to keep our edges sharp. Again, I am happy to provide our readers with a growing list of events coming up in 2021.
PCEA Updates
The pandemic came upon us like a supersonic jet – unseen and unheard until it passed over. It compressed the atmosphere of our lives, our industry and our jobs. As it appears to be moving on with the help of remote working, masking, social distancing and vaccination, the industry is moving to positively decompress. NPI programs are now revving up once again and causing sonic shock waves of hiring activity and job movement. Were you furloughed, laid off or had your hours cut back due to the pandemic’s effects? Boom! It’s time to clap back!
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The chairman and chairman emeritus describe the past and future.
In this month’s column I convey the value of honing a skillset and the importance of being able to measure that skillset. Next, I hand it off to PCEA Chairman Steph Chavez, who offers a positive outlook on PCEA activities over the summer months. Again, I am happy to provide our readers with a growing list of events coming up in 2021.
PCEA Updates
How do you hone your printed circuit engineering skills? Are your skills measureable? We work in an industry that relies on analysis, checking, measurement, feedback and adjustment to improve process and products.
When we think about PCB engineering, we tend to consider product success in terms of process steps: people defining analysis criteria and working to make the product more useful, efficient and valuable.
But let’s pause for a minute and ask, “Who or what is making the people who pull the levers on all these attributes more useful, efficient and valuable?”
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Read more: Test for Design: How Do You Measure Up?
Help navigating career decisions is part of the value of PCEA.
In this month’s column, I extend an overview of two recently held PCEA chapter meetings and give a nod to two interesting presenters who gave their time to cover relevant topics. Next, I hand it off to PCEA chairman Steph Chavez who relates a recent personal career “crossroads” experience and shares what gave him the hope and confidence to carry on. This month, I am excited to provide our readers with a growing list of events coming in 2021.
Chapter Updates
The Michigan Chapter held a highly anticipated kickoff meeting on Feb. 24. Chapter chairman Dugan Karnazes welcomed an international online audience to the meeting and spoke about the excitement and anticipation of bringing local area printed circuit engineers together to learn alongside a greater audience. The featured speaker for the event was Terry Munson, owner of Foresite, who presented The Forensics of Dendrite Shorting. Munson offered his definition of cleanliness, then described no less than 16 sources of contamination that cause dendritic shorts on PCBAs and offered mitigation techniques (FIGURE 1).
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The chairman and chairman emeritus describe the past and future.
In this month’s column, the chairman and chairman emeritus for the PCEA give their viewpoints on the importance of organizing. And as always, I’ll provide a list of events coming up.
PCEA Updates
This month I am excited to bring to our readers an inspiring message from not one but two of the PCEA’s chairmen.
Many readers may not know that our PCEA board has two chairmen by design. Our idea from the beginning has been to preserve the experience from our past organizational associations and use it as our compass as we move ahead.
Steph Chavez serves as PCEA’s chairman. Steph’s primary interest is to lead this organization into a future that respects the ideas and efforts – the legacy – of those who have served the electronics industry so well in the past. To fulfill that interest, Steph relies on his counterpart, chairman emeritus Gary Ferrari, for his wisdom and experience. Gary’s compass was magnetized by a career of serving the electronics industry and bringing together and leading electronics industry professionals.
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