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76 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2021 Footprints—Small Steps with a Giant Impact Introduction In this month's column, I celebrate the importance of the humble PCB component footprint. I suggest that creating and leaving positive professional footprints on all we do in the Printed Circuit Engineering Association is imperative to the success of the PCB industry. Next, I hand it off to PCEA Chairman Stephen Chavez to give us some inspiring words from PCEA as we tread into the new year. And as always, I'll provide our readers with a list of upcoming events. PCEA Updates Not a day goes by that I don't come across hundreds of footprints. ey are not all related to electronic components used in PCB design. As you might imagine, around a cattle ranch, some are le on the property by turkeys, deer, cattle, and other outdoor critters as they go about their daily business of foraging for food in the snow. Some footprints are my own, which I make as I go about my daily business of taking care of outside chores. Sometimes I make "bad" footprints, tracking them into the kitchen if I fail to shed my muck boots in the mudroom before entering. I'd like to point out that these are hardly lasting footprints. ey are made without much thought and quickly fade with the next snowfall or the wipe of a mop across the floor. Lasting footprints are quite different. Over 50 years have passed since Neil Arm- strong made the first footprint on the moon, July 20, 1969. As he climbed down the ladder from the lunar landing module Eagle, and pre- pared to hop down onto terra Luna, he made the profound statement: "at's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." He took that step and made a footprint. at iconic image of a footprint on the moon (Figure 1) represents so much more than someone going about their daily business. e footprints made by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the dusty surface of the moon at Tranquility Base represent millions of actions and pieces of information—data, people, machinery, and processes. ey also repre- sent their mission-critical project stakeholder, Michael Collins, who stayed back to pilot Apollo 11's spacecra Columbia, and all those The Digital Layout Feature Column by Kelly Dack, CIT, CID+, PCEA Figure 1: Neil Armstrong's footprint on the moon.