Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/921680
JANUARY 2018 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 69 Goldman: How many engineers, or how many sets of mentors and engineers are there right now? Rowe: We have two that will be in their third year with us, and we have three in their second year. We are now looking at our applicants for our first-year group starting in 2018. The inter- esting part of this is that for our second-year group we actually have a university student who is one of our emerging engineers. We were excited in our second year to bring an individ- ual on board who is a student, as opposed to actually working in the industry at the current time. He has developed a real interest in IPC and he's taking on a larger role, too, with some activities that Nancy has been working on. Goldman: You said you have applicants. How does that part work? Who applies and how do you determine who you accept? Rowe: There is an application process. We ask applicants to complete a benefits and commit- ments paper or page, which is on our website for the emer ging engineer program [1] . That explains the commitment for three years; as we both said, it is a three-year commitment for this program. We ask the individual to acknowledge that and for their supervisor, or the person they report to, to acknowledge that this is a three- year commitment on their part. We have had requests for additional information such as 'What do I do beyond the events?' for exam - ple. We've been able to work with each indi- vidual to understand their concerns as they're worried about that three-year time commit- ment. It does take that paper and it also takes a cop y of their resumé. When that information comes to Nancy and me, we sit down together and review it to determine if that person meets the qualifications and requirements, and then we fill our slots accordingly. We do have situations where organizations have asked for the person's mentor to be from their company, as well. We've been able to match those individuals up, where the mentor is someone who may be mentoring that indi- vidual at their company now. In other cases, it's someone from their organization, but maybe from a different site or a different loca- tion around the world. We've also had compa- nies come to us and say, 'I have an emerging engineer candidate, and I would truly like to have someone mentor them who is not part of our organization to give them a broader knowl- edge base of other organizations and the way to rest of the world works.' Jonathan Zinski: When you go through the application process, how many slots do you have to fill? Rowe: We have been talking about five for our current year, plus a university student. Goldman: I guess you need to have mentors, which I presume are mostly committee chair- men? Would that be accurate? Jaster: We do have chairs that have been mentors, but the key is really that they're an active member on a committee. We want some - body who can work with the emerging engineer and direct them to the right standards commit- tees that they may be interested and want to participate in. The y don't necessarily have to be a chair, but it does have to be somebody who has been involved in the standards activities. IPC APEX EXPO 2018 PRE-SHOW SPECIAL COVERAGE