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34 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2021 Feature Article by John Perry IPC If you have ever attended an IPC standards development meeting, whether it be in person or through a web meeting, then you've seen or heard us—that collection of IPC staff mem- bers within the IPC Technical Department that schedule the myriad face-to-face or online standards meetings taking place at annual IPC events or throughout the year. We're the ones you hear from when IPC circulates a new stan- dard working dra, promotes it to Final Dra for Industry Review (FDIR) for broader indus- try input, or notifies you that the document is ready for balloting towards release. But we are more than just a team of individuals scheduling meetings, running around like rabbits attend- ing to various concurrent meetings, taking notes, or announcing when it is time to sub- mit comments to a standard dra or submit votes to one in ballot; we are very much "shep- herds" of the IPC Standards Development pro- cess, ensuring that IPC standards are moving forward with technology and that the finished efforts represent the needs of suppliers, manu- facturers, and end users. Promoting that Volunteer Mentality As IPC technical staff liaisons, one of the main responsibilities of our job is to inspire people to get involved and join an IPC subcommittee or task group developing or revising an IPC standard. As an accredited Standards Devel- opment Organization (SDO) under the Amer- ican National Standards Institute (ANSI), our standards are developed strictly through an industry volunteer process; designers, mate- rial vendors, process engineers, quality assur- ance managers, contract assemblers and test houses (just to name a few—the overall list is much larger) all work together on a specific industry standard. Despite IPC being an indus- try trade association for over 60 years, how- ever, there are still many in the industry who presume that IPC standards are written by staff members in closed groups and that a path to have their company or organization contrib- IPC Technical Staff Liaisons—Your 'Shepherds' in the IPC Standards Development Process