Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1212069
REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2020 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE I I-CONNECT007 75 started with NRL. I wasn't doing anything that you would call traditional PCB fabrication; it was more of R&D work for the Navy. But I gained a good understanding of how we fun- damentally work with materials for electronics applications, such as different interactions and how they get processed. In 2005, I switched jobs and started work- ing with the CALCE Center at the University of Maryland. Soon after I joined CALCE, I was so glad that I had spent the previous four or so years at the NRL because CALCE was a fast interstate moving at such a very different pace. At the Center, they work with all imaginable sorts of electronics, including medical devices, automotive (even electronics from the Indy 500 race cars), aerospace/avionics, telecom- munications, downhole oil drilling, etc. In a sense, the NRL work and my graduate education provided me with a fundamental un- derstanding of electronics materials and mate- rial processing, which I applied in a reliability and test context at CALCE for 11 years. That's where it took off. Then, I moved to NASA close to five years ago, where I kept up on working with electronics. I don't do as much hands-on work as CALCE, which was kind of a bummer for me at the beginning. When I came to NASA Goddard, I thought, "Am I going to sit in my office all day?" But I found out that there's so much more than working in a lab. There are risk assessments and reviews, complex decision-making, our spaceflight projects, and watching how these pieces of complex electronics that I work with so closely fit into the overall instrument or flight systems. We fly these spacecraft and in- struments to achieve the Agency's goals. That, in a nutshell, has been the progression of my career. Goldman: How did your involvement with IPC start? Sood: I was a user of standards at the Naval Research Lab. Of course, they're a research or- ganization, being in the Navy, and did not use IPC standards as much. However, I did look at some of my old notes and saw that I used IPC standards for reliability testing and character- ization, like some of the TM-650 test methods. But when I got to CALCE, that's when the rele- vance of standards came around. I believe I at- tended my first IPC APEX EXPO in 2007. Even then, standards-making was new to me, but I did know that I was a user of the standards that were being flowed down to the supply chain. I was impressed with how that process worked. I said, "This is where it all gets done." I accompanied certain people to committee meetings. I met Dieter Bergman and Werner Engelmaier in the committee meetings and oth- ers who we all respect in the industry. I said, "If you want to voice your opinion and think something needs to be changed in the stan- dard, we need to raise our hands to bring forth the data and make a good technical case for it." I have only missed one IPC APEX EXPO since 2007 (because of the government shutdown in 2019), but I've managed to stay involved in committees. 2010 was the first time I developed a professional development course at IPC, so IPC started getting a good understanding of where I'm coming from. They appreciated the professional courses I developed and delivered for them at IPC APEX EXPO. I am involved in numerous committees, including the TM-650 and several standards committees. I've lost count, but I think I'm part of 40 committees. I chair one, and I am on sev- eral A teams. My involvement started out by being a user, and then IPC APEX EXPO was the first face-to-face encounter I had where I got a good sense of how standards were developed, and it was fascinating to be involved. I took it from both a learning perspective and a knowl- edge-sharing perspective that perhaps what I know and understand about materials reliabil- ity, quality, and electronics would benefit the committee in general. And there are the awards. My friend Bev Christian and I joke. Bev says the plaque is $30 (laughs), and I probably have 12 committee dis- tinguished membership plaques, but I'll say, "It's not about the $30 plaque; it's the honor, recog- nition, and satisfaction that comes with what I developed and how I took a leadership role in developing a standard." I have always liked that.