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84 The PCB Magazine • December 2015 etery is. These positions need to be filled with young, talented and aggressive experts from the industry. Standards are developed using a four-step process. First the concept or idea is presented to the Technical Activities Executive Committee (TAEC), which is comprised of both past and present General Committee chairmen and staff liaisons. Once approved, the appropriate task group develops the document as the second step. There are a series of comment periods as the document is refined and more reflective of the wishes of the membership. Once the document has been completed, the third step is a circula- tion resulting in a vote of either yes or no. Each IPC member company gets one vote if they have volunteered to be part of the voting process. The final step is the comment resolution, where "no" votes are resolved as appropriate. Docu- ments at IPC can be published over any "no" votes provided there have been ample attempts to resolve the conflicting points. This process typically takes 15–30 months to complete. IEC The International Electrotechnical Commis- sion (IEC), based in Geneva, Switzerland, has a membership made up of countries not com- panies. Each country pays their dues from the "National Committee" to IEC in order to be a voting member. In the U.S., the actual vot- ing organization or our National Committee is ANSI, based out of Washington DC. Our USA industry experts pay an annual fee of a little less than $300 for the privilege of working on the IEC standards. A veritable bargain you might say. Our experts come from a number of USA trade associations including IPC, JEDEC, iNE- MI, IEEE, and the like. The IEC is made up of a number of technical committees or TCs. TC91, which develops most DIETER IS GONE AND I DON'T FEEL SO GOOD MYSELF! Figure 1: Organization of the Ipc Base Materials committee. Mr. lAMinATe Tells All