IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
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IPC COMMUNITY 34 SPRING 2023 Let's start with your first meeting. How did that go and what was your expectation? Christina: The first time I attended IPC APEX EXPO, I went to the Newcomers' Reception. While I was there, I had a question regarding the IPC/WHMA-A-620S and I had no idea who to talk to about it. I saw John Mitchell, president and CEO of IPC, greeting everyone and I decided that talking to him would be the best way to find an answer to my question. I was able to speak with John about my question, and he directed me to Teresa Rowe, who eventually introduced me to Garry. When I met Garry, he gave me such a great answer to my question that I asked him if he would be my mentor. Garry: Teresa Rowe approached me and said she knew an engineer who would be a great candi- date for me to work with in the Emerging Engi- neer program. Christina and I met shortly thereaf- ter. The COVID shutdown affected our ability to conduct face-to-face activities, but we did make it to several IPC meetings, and we had many more virtual meetings. There is much to gain from being part of a mentorship program. What were your expectations, and how did you establish the types of meetings and projects you would work on? Christina: My expectations were to have someone show me the ropes in the IPC stan- dards committee world. Outside of that, Garry has proven to be a valuable resource for one-off technical harnessing-type questions that have stumped me over the years. Aside from being a co-vice-chair on the IPC/WHMA-A-620S with Garry, we haven't taken on any special projects together. The A-620 space addendum has kept us busy enough that we have maintained virtual communication throughout those COVID years. Garry: I didn't know what to expect. Christina was in the first or second class of the EE program, so there wasn't much history to base our plans on, but in the generic definition of "mentor," I knew it would be my responsibility to guide her through how the meetings work: how to lead them, and to obtain insight into the intent of many require- ments in our standards. As someone who is nearing retirement, my primary goal has been to do what I can to help the next generation of engineers take the technology to its next level of evolution. Christina, what have you learned from Garry and how do you intend to use that information as you continue your career? Christina: Garry has taught me everything that I know about how IPC works, from submitting comments and dispositioning them, to navi- gating passionate committee members. When I first met Garry, I was a lead harnessing technician. He has helped guide me in the industry from a technical IPC mentorship perspective so that I have had the confidence and knowledge to succeed as a harness design engineer in the aerospace industry. Garry, would you give us some insight into the sorts of projects you worked on with Christina? Garry: Developing successive revisions of the working draft of our standard is proba- bly the only thing we could call a project. We discussed how comments should be sub- mitted, how to address them in meetings, and to ensure the commentator's interests were not ignored during committee meetings. Working with Christina has been an excellent experience. Our shop in Alabama has even pro- cured tooling that Christina brought to my atten- tion from her visits to the exhibition hall vendors.