Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1527952
40 PCB007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2024 My accomplishment was that I somehow lived through all of that and it was a very interesting working education. It was like working for 10 to 15 companies in slightly related but differ- ent industries. In terms of the challenges I faced, I was involved in technical marketing, which included both the customer and the customer's customer: the PCB fabricator, EMS provider, and OEMs. At this point, I had the entire food chain under my hat, from the raw materials to the finished product. Can you compare the PCB industry from your early years at Isola to what it's like now? When I first started in the industry, the OEMs were the leaders: companies like West- ern Electric, GTE, and Sperry-Univac. As the years passed, the power was transferred to independent merchant shops such as Photo- circuits, Diceon, etc. ese shops could build the PCBs for the OEMs at a much lower cost, and that transformed into outsourcing to the rest of the world. at's when Asia became more competitive than the U.S. independent shops. We saw the U.S. independents shrink while Asian markets grew. Now there's talk of OEMs coming back, but that's the transition I saw happening during my 46 years. (CCL) manufacturer owned by UOP, which eventually sold to a company called Signal. Signal was sold to Allied Signal. Allied Signal owned Norplex, and bought another compet- itor called Oak, and the company was called Norplex Oak. Allied Signal also bought West- inghouse and Fortin (another laminate man- ufacturer), and the name changed to Norplex Oak Westinghouse Fortin. Allied Signal then bought a competitor called Polyclad (which owns ADI), and finally bought the technol- ogy of another competitor called Mica. en it vertically integrated to become joint ven- ture partners in copper foil (Mitsui), glass yarn (PPG), woven glass (Asahi Schwebel), and resin (Ciba). On top of that, they decided to do a joint venture with another CCL in Korea called Doosan. Guess who was involved in all of this? Me— to some capacity. Eventually, Honeywell bought Allied Signal, then sold the business I was involved with (all of these) to Rütgers (Germany)—which owned Isola. Isola owned MAS (another CCL) and a joint venture CCL called Sumisola. So, now there were 10–15 companies that were all part of Isola. Rütgers sold Isola, and it became owned by a venture capital company. Now this huge company of 10 to 15 companies and joint ven- tures was all rolled into one big ball called Isola.