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48 PCB007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2018 Feature Interview by Barry Matties I-CONNECT007 At the recent AltiumLive event, Barry Mat- ties met with PCB sales expert Tara Dunn of Omni PCB to discuss selling strategies for sell- ing PCBs in the North American market. The conversation also covers strategies for staying competitive through a generational shift in the ownership of PCB shops, and the importance of supply chain communication and building relationships. Barry Matties: First, talk a little bit about your company for our readers. Tara Dunn: My company is Omni PCB. We are a manufacturer's rep company focused exclu- sively on the PCB industry, so we provide sales and engineering support for our customers ranging from standard FR-4 designs through high-end HDI. We also specialize in flex, rigid- flex, and advanced manufacturing that enables line width and space below one mil. Matties: How many years have you been do- ing this? Dunn: Over 20 years, and I always hate to admit it and age myself! Matties: In those 20 years, what comes to mind for significant changes or milestones? Dunn: Technology is definitely advancing, and I'd say particularly the last five years I've seen it advancing at an even faster rate. Over those 20 years, we also went to a lot of offshore man- ufacturing. When I first started, that wasn't common. Also, there are changes in how we do business. We used to use fax and mail to send purchase orders and files, and use the tele- phone as the primary communication method. Now, we heavily depend on email. There is a much faster response time, but I think we have also lost the benefit of communicating with each other on a more personal level. Matties: That's interesting because at one point, ordering your circuit boards on a website was becoming popular with the prototype and hob- byist market. Is that as popular these days? Dunn: I think that there's still a significant por- tion of the market that can utilize web-based Tara Dunn Shares Strategies for Today's PCB Business