Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1319500
36 PCB007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2020 Audra Thurston, R&D Engineering Manager 2 years full time, 1 year internship Had you worked in a different industry prior? I had a semester-long internship my junior year in the phosphate mining industry. The next summer I started at Calumet Electronics as an intern. Calumet Electronics was my first full time job after I graduated university. Was electronics manufacturing something you sought out? Or did you happen into it? I happened into it. I started out looking for an internship in the Calumet area to spend a sum- mer in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and ended up at Calumet Electronics. I wasn't sure what a chemical engineer could do in the print- ed circuit board manufacturing process, but it was an internship. After a summer of getting my hands dirty in plating tanks and spending entire days on the manufacturing floor, I knew this was an industry I wanted to stay in be- cause it gave me a chance to be hands on. Do you see a career path for yourself? One of the reasons I was attracted to starting as a freshly graduated engineer in this indus- try over others is because electronics are con- stantly evolving to meet the demands of min- iaturization and improvements to SWAP (size, weight, and power). I realized that there were going to be many advancements in the elec- tronics industry in my lifetime and I could be a part of them at Calumet Electronics. This made me excited because I could have a long career and always be learning something new with all the changes to technology. Because of this attraction to advanced tech- nology, I pictured myself eventually going on the R&D path after many years of learn- ing the ins and outs of the various manufac- turing processes as a process engineer which is where I started. However, due to the op- portunity created by the lack of capability in volume in the domestic industry and Calumet Electronics' goal of filling this gap, my career path to R&D was expediated tenfold and I am now the R&D engineering manager of Calu- met's first official R&D team, which is focused on manufacturing the next generation of tech- nology at the market demand for volume, lead time, and price. Through this experience I realized you can't plan your career path, especially in this ever- changing industry, which to me is exciting. You have to go where your talents are need- ed to capture the current moment in the in- dustry and figure out how to rise to the chal- lenge. Instead of planning my career path, I am planning my short- and long-term career goals. My long-term career goal is to always feel challenged and to make meaningful con- tributions to my company, my industry, and my community by creating systematic im- provements over time. If I start to feel com- fortable in a position, I'll know it is time to re- assess my current path. What is your educational background? I went to Michigan Technological Universi- ty where I graduated with my B.A. in Chemical Engineering in 2018. When I started in chemi- cal engineering, I assumed that I would go into toilet paper and consumer product manufactur- ing since that is such a large industry in the Midwest. I never planned to be in electronics!