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Show-and-Tell-02-22

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REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2022 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 113 an electrical engineering degree with a math- ematics minor. She serves as the president of the IPC Student Chapter at Valparaiso. Nel- son is also the public relations chair for IEEE and a Hesse tutor for STEM education. She is a corporate intern and parallel co-op engineer for Caterpillar, Inc. In addition, Hannah is a year-one Emerging Engineer in IPC's Emerg- ing Engineers Program. S&T Interview by Nolan Johnson Nolan Johnson gets insight from Bob Neves, president of Microtek Laboratories China. Nolan Johnson: Welcome Bob, so glad to see you here. Bob Neves: Good to see you. Johnson: Are you glad to be here? Neves: Absolutely. It's been two years since we've really come face to face at a show like this. I was at the Milwaukee Summer- Con and that was our first toe in the water with get- ting back together. It was nice to have people there, but here it's really nice to get back in and at least the technical committee sessions are a little better attended and we're meeting face to face rather than on Zoom. It's been effective, but it's just nice to put a face to voices and see how people are doing. Johnson: I agree. Personally, you and I were just getting introduced to working together as we went into lockdown. So, most of what we've done has been through teleconference. Neves: That has created a tool that I don't think is going to go away, even if the pandemic goes away. Moving forward, I think we're going to be using the things we learned during the pandemic. It should be interesting to see how we integrate the face-to-face with the digital presence and maybe that will make digital presence a little better, rather than just a blank thing on a square on a Zoom screen; maybe we'll get more of a telepresence. Maybe we'll Star Trek, we'll finally make its presence known in our universe. Johnson: Right. Speaking to you as a board mem- ber with IPC, what are some of the objectives that you want to see accomplished here with this edition of IPC APEX EXPO? Neves: Well, the needs of our industry haven't gone away. The pandemic has not reduced the needs of our industry; in fact, in some ways it's made it more chal- lenging for our industry, from a supply chain standpoint, educa- tion, and hiring standpoint. From the board's standpoint of things, we want to continue to create an environment with the IPC that helps our members address the issues of the day, whether that's government relations, education, hiring, standards development, obviously here at the trade show itself, getting new equipment on the floor, or getting people to improve their manufacturing processes. It's been sad that we haven't been able to do as much as we wanted to do, but now that we're right here at the edge of moving forward, we decided we would go on with the trade show. Obviously, it's not as well attended as it could be, given the circumstance, but it does give an oppor- tunity for the people who are willing to come out to get more of a sense of normal again and you get to recognize how people look, just looking at their eyes. That's the hard part…I know this person, but it just doesn't click in my brain, so we need to make the font on the badges a little larger. Johnson: There's a good one. Neves: I'll put in the recommendations because it's a little harder to figure people out with just seeing their eyes. If my phone can't recognize me with my mask on, then how are other people going to do that? Johnson: Thank you for your insights. Neves: Thank you, Nolan. Voices of the Show: Bob Neves, Microtek Laboratories China

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