Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1111672
32 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2019 3–4 weeks. And then you throw in the biggest challenge—many large organizations thinned out over the past 5–6 years due to a combina- tion of a lot of people retiring in procurement and program management across the military client sector. With employees retiring and com- pany restructuring, some roles were also being eliminated. Now, we're faced with all of the challenges that I've just outlined at once, and there's a more junior set of people occupying those chairs. Johnson: Just when communication and relationships are more important than ever before—and there are challenges to get things done faster and in shorter windows of time— now, it takes more time to finish the complex parts. You also need to help build a base for a less-experienced group of people with whom you're communicating. Vaughan: Absolutely. And you can take the approach of the glass being half full, which is what we take, which spells opportunity for us. We're uniquely set up to have the resources that are gaps within our customers right now, so we're bringing a high level of value to all the program activity. So, it's great, but very challenging. And that takes you back to the same equation we're solving that everybody else is too—we need more engineers and we need them now. And we build high-complexity products, so it takes a seasoned person. We're hiring and training straight out of college and have been very active in those type of STEM-related ini- tiatives and have been aligning with techni- cal and community colleges for many years. You need a blend of experienced engineers and emerging engineers to become more educated for optimal results. Johnson: Are you looking for new areas of business right now? Vaughan: We are. As I mentioned earlier, we're about 80% concentrated in mil/aero and the DoD right now. And that's great, but when you sit back and look at it, you have to say, "We need to proportion out our business a little bit better." So, we're looking at a couple of things. One is the expansion of our medical business because there's a lot of striking similarities between military and medical—the most obvi- ous being a Class 3 build, which is typically a requirement for medical. There's also the intel- lectual property (IP) piece and the avoidance of going offshore. Both mil/aero and medical industries prefer to be built in the U.S., so we have the engineering and test set as well as the manufacturing capabilities to support a Class 3 environment, so more medical is a natural extension. Along the way, because we are doing high- complexity builds, we've dialed in pretty tight processes for some of the more sophisticated parts out there; for example, some of the pro- cessors, bottom-terminated components, and more challenging devices. If you look at high- end computing, they're always putting a lot of processing power into a small form fac- tor, so that is a fit for us. With acquisitions, we're actively looking at several companies to acquire right now. The shortest pathway to new markets and customers is to acquire an organization that's already doing a great job, so that's another avenue that we're looking at closely right now. Johnson: Do you see more of the newer and more specialized materials being specified by the teams you're working with regarding bare boards in particular? Vaughan: Most of what we do tends to be a lot of RF and microwave work for electronic war- fare and signals intelligence. We see a lot of You can take the approach of the glass being half full, which is what we take, which spells opportunity for us.