Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1309864
NOVEMBER 2020 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 91 ational through COVID-19. Doing so has been an interesting feat on its own, especially man- aging through employees out of work for test- ing and home taking care of sick family mem- bers. Copper foil manufacturing is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. We have to keep the factory running. Fortunately, we've had a lot of great support from our sup- pliers, especially through the transition with ownership. We have not had any repercussions or worries from our supply chain throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We've certainly experienced shifting of schedules, moving employees around, and changing job functions to keep the factory running at all times. Especially with the idea that if, for instance, one shift were to test pos- itive for COVID-19, how would we keep the factory running? Fortunately, we were able to pull from various disaster recovery plans and tailor the requirements specifically for the pandemic. To add to these changes, my predecessor, John Fa t c h e r i c, w h o wa s with the business for over 35 years, retired on March 31. Thankfully, he remains on our board of directors. Despite not being part of the day-to-day operations, he has been a huge help through the tran- sition. Taking on my new role with new ownership and the start of a global pandem- ic all at once has been quite a learning expe- rience. Johnson: Is a shortage of skilled labor a chal- lenge for you? Coll: It is. We find it difficult to recruit. Part of that is just our location since we're not close to a major town or city. We're 30 miles away from Columbia, but at the same time, for younger talent, it may as well be 300 miles away. It has been a struggle, even before I joined the orga- nization, to recruit and retain young engineers, particularly. We find that we have a lot of great support from the county, helping with the pro- duction labor and maintenance. But as we look to bring in younger and newer talent, especial- ly for engineering roles, we foresee this will be quite difficult. Johnson: You are not alone in that particular challenge. In talking to some of the PCB fabri- cators, especially the ones who are on the cut- ting edge in manufacturing, many of them say that they can't find senior chemists and se- nior-type technical resources inside the U.S., so they have to bring somebody from interna- tional. Coll: In my prior experience at other compa- nies, we saw the exact same thing where most of the chemists, especially Ph.D. senior chem- ists, were all from outside the U.S. But I'm sur- prised that at Denkai America, we even strug- gle to find entry-level people who want to work in a manufacturing environment. While we produce nice shiny rolls of copper foil, at the heart of our process, we are a hardcore chemi- cal facility. It's hot in the summer, cold in the winter, and smells of chemistry inside. When recruits understand how it is that we produce the copper foil, there aren't a lot that want to be part of it, especially when they have a ster- ile laboratory in mind. Johnson: We haven't had much discussion of the technical ins and outs of copper foil, what to pay attention to, and the process. It used to be, "I don't care. It's just on FR-4, so I can ig- nore it," but now they actually have to specify. Coll: I'm on the IPC-4562 Committee with Eric Bergum from Founder PCB. One of the biggest issues that has plagued the industry for quite some time is it was easy when people said, "I want a smoother foil," and you could perform While we produce nice shiny rolls of copper foil, at the heart of our process, we are a hardcore chemical facility.