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30 SMT007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2019 industry moved at lightspeed (in some cases, literally) compared to any other industry at the time. The next generation began around the early 1960s when commercial products using more electronics than ever before began to soar in popularity: televisions, Hi-Fi stereos, and those sweet 900-pound TV/stereo combos that could never be moved once in place. Computers were being built at companies like Digital Equip- ment Corporation (DEC) and were becoming commonplace in larger companies and the mil- itary for tasks like payroll. Coupled with tech- nological advances in automotive and aero- space electronics, the industry really began in earnest as we know it today. When reflecting on the voices from that era, I think less about individuals and more about companies that made huge advancements, and the big companies thought less about the indi- viduals as well. Most patents are owned by the companies, and some don't even reference any of the engineers that did the work. DEC was certainly a leader in computing, but they weren't the only ones. IBM hit a homerun with the System/360 mainframe computer, and obviously, they are still one of the leaders in computing power with few rivals. There was a downturn in the 1990s after IBM failed to see the future of com- puting was on a desktop and not in a gigantic server room, but they managed to stay afloat and eventually release their own desktop units, which were very popular at the time. In the case of IBM, they have lasted by listening to a lot of their internal voices over the years. With multiple decades under one umbrella, there is a lot of history to look back on and learn from. This holds true for most companies that have been around for that long, but not everyone bothers to listen to their own voices, some- times at their own peril. Some industry giants are still around to learn from, but there are also a lot of individuals teaching as many as will learn. In my almost 20 years in the industry, I have had the good fortune of meeting and even working with quite a few who I believe have voices that will resonate for years to come. I attend industry events like SMTAI and IPC APEX EXPO, and these events are treasure troves for those look- ing for research papers on every aspect of our industry. From raw component processing to final packaging, if you have a question or inter- est in a specific topic, there is a great chance you can find a presentation covering it. And most are given by subject-matter experts from well-known companies, putting in the work to mainly benefit their own assembly process, but they are more than willing to share most of the details with the public at large. When I started working at Contamination Studies Laboratories (CSL, but now Foresite), the first voice I heard is the one that I still hear almost every day—Terry Munson, com- pany founder and president. In our lab, we are encouraged to not only do the work our cus- tomers request, but also to think about fail- ure analysis outside of what would normally be considered for analysis. The equipment in our lab is certainly not all-encompassing when you look at all of the available equipment on the market, but we have a nice set of comple- mentary pieces that allow us to get to the root cause of most failures. Another big voice I hear around the office is Paco Solis, a lead investigator at Foresite. Paco is one of the smartest people I have ever met and has experience working in pretty much every part of the process with many years in When reflecting on the voices from that era, I think less about individuals and more about companies that made huge advancements, and the big companies thought less about the individuals as well.