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IPC COMMUNITY 49 WINTER 2025 Pieces of a Puzzle John Watson started his career in military intelligence and as an elec- tronics repair technician but moved over to printed circuit board (PCB) design at a time when the whole electronics industry was experienc- ing a paradigm shift. "I wanted to be involved in elec- tronics," he says of those younger days. "As a technician, you used to go down to a component level on fixing things. But in the late 1990s, they began just swapping boards out. They didn't care if you went down to the component level. So, the whole area of electronics tech- nician work changed. That's when I changed my career and went into PCB design." There's a common belief, he says, "that you need a set path to get into PCB design or that maybe you have to be an engineer, but I've been doing this career for about 24 years now, and it's really exciting." Since shifting to PCB design, John has supported the industry through his roles as a PCB designer, an instructor at Palomar College in southern California for the past three years, and as a member of a design leadership initiative through IPC. John was introduced to IPC stan- dards in 2000 as a student of PCB design by instructor Bill Brooks. "As we walked through the door of the classroom, he handed us IPC-2221 and 2222, and said, 'These are your textbooks.' That was my introduc- tion to IPC," John says. "I really held true to IPC as the standard of how it should be done." In the summer of 2023, John was invited to serve as a representative on the Design Leadership Council, led by Peter Tranitz, senior direc- tor of technology solutions, IPC Electronics Europe GmbH. "It's a fantastic group, and I'm really glad to see this happening with IPC," John says. "This is a very active and talented group of individuals and includes some of the greatest lead- ers in our industry. It's very exciting to see." All members of the council are board designers, but John says they represent both MCAD and ECAD programs. "It definitely gives a dif- ferent viewpoint of a particular point or standard when we're look- ing at it from the various industries involved," he says. The council's purpose is to ser- vice the design side of the industry. "We are here to provide resources and to develop this relationship between IPC and the designer," John says. "We started this group because IPC began to see that this whole PCB process is so intercon- nected, what IPC calls 'silicon to systems.' It's a broader, multi-fac- eted view of the work we're doing in the industry." It's also a very international group, with representatives from Europe, North America, and Asia addressing topics of interest to a worldwide audience. At IPC APEX EXPO 2024, the Design Leadership Council mem- bers presented a white paper and hosted a roundtable presentation. That paper has now been published and is available at ipc.org. PCB designer John Watson sees the big picture of life and work By Michelle Te, Managing Editor, IPC Community