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14 The PCB Magazine • December 2015 the Suppliers Council had to be able to speak for their companies. If a decision was made to take on a project, we did not want the commit- tee members needing to go back to convince their boss; they had to be of a position to make decisions and commit their companies to the project right then and there. With this new group there were some obvi- ous potential conflicts and some legal concerns. After all, as president of Dynachem, I would be working closely with Dr. Jim Hickman, manag- ing director of DuPont's Riston Division. Our two companies were fighting a decades' long market battle for imaging product dominance. The presidents of MacDermid and Shipley would also be working together, etc. So you can see the potential for conflict. However, there was none. The entire group met and agreed to work together for the good of the industry and the IPC. Competitive issues were never dis- A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INCEPTION OF IPC ExPO cussed and for the most part there was a great deal of mutual respect. We set up a time and place to meet and we then spent a full day discussing ideas on proj- ects that we could take on to meet our mission. Obviously, with that many talented and prov- en executives, there were many good ideas and there was much discussion. We decided that we could not take them all on at once to we then set about narrowing them down to just a few that we could start and complete before we took on more. So what ended up being #1 on the list? What would this august group take on first? Before we identify it, here's a little more background. In the late '70s and throughout the '80s the main trade show in the USA and one of the larg- est in the world was NEPCON West. The com- petition between suppliers was fierce, not only on the trade show floor, but also in the arena Figure 1: ribbon cutting at the first Ipc printed circuits expo, which opened to rousing reviews. Front row, from left to right: Jerry Siegmund, Siegmund & assoc.; peter Sarmanian, printed circuits corp.; Sam altschuler, altron Incorporated; and dan Feinberg, Morton electronic Materials. Fein-lines