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80 I-CONNECT007 I REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2022 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE gram, and we attended his first IPC meeting together. I think that was in 2019. e pan- demic hit shortly thereaer, and I haven't really had the opportunity to meet with him at IPC any time since then. I sent an email earlier on to say, "Hey, are you going to be at IPC this go-around in San Diego." But I don't know yet if he will be coming. We might have to kind of reboot that relationship and start over. But there are a lot of younger engineers. Many of the cleaning and coating committees have been turned over to the next generation. I know Dave Hillman, as he is approaching retire- ment in a couple months, has been working the last couple of years to bring his replacement, Tim Pearson, up to speed. Another young man, Dan White, has been my colleague, my pro- tegé, and so on. I've been working to bring him along in the cleaning and coating area. It is an expectation of a Collins Fellow to mentor the next generation of professionals. For many of our younger engineers in cleaning and coating, I still serve as a mentor and try to always listen to their ideas before putting forth my own. I don't want to be too much of a force of nature. at's one of my passions, Patty, is helping to mentor and bring along the next generation of engineers. I think back to when I was a young engineer, and I first started attending in 1985 long, long ago. Many of the leaders then were so generous with their time, and their expertise. ey were all very much of the "pay it forward" mentality. It so impressed me. It helped me so much that I had said, "at's the kind of person I want to be as well." So, in these latter years of my career, I want to focus on taking a lot of what I've learned through the years and pass that on. Goldman: I oen wonder if other industries are like ours and have the kind of mindset and way of thinking where we all work together. We are competitors, but we all work together for the industry. I know there are always contentions here and there, but for the most part, we all are focused on moving forward. Do other indus- tries actually get along like our industry does? Pauls: Well, I think most industries have a common thread in that working to standards, working to specifications where everyone in the industry says, "Yeah, this is the right way to do something." It's in everyone's best inter- est, that we can all participate in developing standards, but without necessarily doing away with the fun. I think all of us are working from that standpoint to better the industry. Almost every industry, at least that I've ever seen, has some form of professional society, professional organization, that represents that industry seg- ment. Most of them have areas in which peo- ple are working on agreed activities that will advance their industry. In this cleaning of electronics and so on, I've looked into the medical and automotive indus- tries. One of our groups at Collins is called Knowledge Management (KM). Basically, almost every company in the U.S., regardless of what they're doing, is struggling with what has been called the gray tsunami. As all of us with silver in our hair tend to retire and leave the workforce, how do we replace them and how do we capture that knowledge and expe- rience? Everyone is struggling with that. On the other hand, for many of the young engineers, the young co-ops, and so on, who have been my privilege to work with over the years, it means they have a lot of opportunities avail- able to them in the industry. Goldman: at's so true. Now, suppose you met someone for the first time, and it's their first IPC meeting; what's your advice to them? Pauls: I would have to say go find an old dude, buy him a beer. I still remember going to my first IPC meeting, and gosh, that's about 36 years ago. You're walking around and every- thing is new and overwhelming. You don't