Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1185676
NOVEMBER 2019 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 21 Holden: I've met all of the manag- ers at Calumet Electronics, and they are fairly forward-thinking. Their business philosophy has helped the company a lot. Thurston: Yes, I have great mentors here. Dr. Meredith LaBeau, the di- rector of process engineering, is a huge proponent of continuing education. She helped me as an intern get into full-time engineer- ing as well as continue growing in the role. And a lot of what I've been sharing has been informed by what I've seen and been taught at Calu- met Electronics. The industry is ag- ing, and that's something that people like Mer- edith and others in management are working to change by recruiting young engineers like me and starting classes, like the PCB course at Michigan Tech. Holden: I'm hoping that we can continue to build the printed circuit and electronic manu- facturing focus at Michigan Tech to introduce more undergraduate and graduate students and engineers, as well as those working on re- search projects. Thurston: I agree. Holden: What was your favorite course in chemical engineering? Thurston: My favorite course was our unit oper- ations lab, where the real world met the class- room. I became a chemical engineer because I wanted to do something in manufacturing, but I didn't know what. I knew that I didn't want to sit at a desk all day; I wanted the excitement of being on the floor and firefighting. Some- times, I look back and think, "Why did I want to do this again?" especially when you have to scrap a bunch of boards and figure out why; that's no fun. Holden: At Oregon State University, which both Nolan and I attended, our chemical engineer- ing department had printed circuit and IC equipment in the unit operations lab. Thurston: That's something that would be on my wish list, to try to get our chemical engi- neering department to have equipment like that because all of the people in the PCB class were electrical engineers; there weren't any chemi- cal or mechanical engineers, but all three of those disciplines are needed. It would be cool to see that class grow to include all three types of engineers. Holden: The reason we had printed circuit and IC equipment is because Merix and Intel would donate the equipment. So, we studied the McHale and TB conventional unit opera- tions, but we went to labs. Instead of doing pe- troleum or chemical, we would do sputtering or photo deposition, which is the same prin- ciple but with different hands-on equipment. Thurston: We had a distillation column and polymer reactions vessel, as well as some more minor projects. It would be cool to have something like an electroplating tank to start, and then hopefully, we could build from there. Johnson: Thank you for speaking with us. You had some great insights, Audra. Thurston: Thanks for your time. PCB007