Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1359517
78 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2021 Our mission is to collaborate, inspire, and educate; that's what our meetings are all about. We try to bring in interesting topics and speakers, and then get a good-sized group of folks to share with. It's been enlightening; it really has. We've grown quite a bit. I'm involved in the membership committee, so we're trying to help form these new chapters. And we've made alliances with other like- minded industry associations. We all promote each other for mutual benefit, which has been interesting. Some of our people have been active in the standards committees at IPC and even lead- ing some of the standards committee groups, so we all benefit from sharing information. We have a relationship with SMTA as well. It's a volunteer organization, so it's all about getting new people to join. It was interesting that we came across Tomas in Canada, an area that we hadn't really paid a lot of attention to. I'm going to let him talk about how he dried into our group and how much he's been able to accomplish since. Chester: I had the good fortune to be intro- duced to Michael Creeden, and I'd asked him to be a mentor, right about the same time the PCEA was being formed. I think one of the things that is missing in this industry, which the PCEA does a very nice job with, is looking toward education. ere aren't many mentors in this industry anymore who provide guid- ance and information, not just in a technical sense, but also in a general career sense, and understanding of the industry. rough that, Mike had challenged me to create an Ontario chapter here in Canada. At the end of 2020, I was looking at doing that, and it was great because the PCEA leadership was very supportive. I remember meeting with Scott and Stephen Chavez, and a couple of other members. ey said, "Okay, this is how you run your meetings. is is how you can get people involved. Now that we've launched your chap- ter and it's actually set up, we want to help you in running your events as well. To ensure that we have a great kickoff, let's bring in a couple of other new chapters together at the same time." en, at the beginning of January, we did a tri-city kick-off. We launched three chapters: Ontario, Canada; a Michigan chapter; and Min- neapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. By doing that, it really expanded our boundaries. It also means that we're going into these new areas and com- municating with people who probably didn't realize there was an industry association like this that could help and support them. We're allowing that kind of connectivity among engi- neers, designers, and fabricators. We're build- ing those connections. Shaughnessy: e Designers Council had started using WebEx right before COVID, so the members in the middle of the country could feel like they were part of a chapter. at meant you were more or less ready to go with video meetings when the pandemic hit. McCurdy: Yes. In my chapter we were record- ing and editing it, and then making that Tomas Chester