Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1540425
20 PCB007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2025 building factories in places like Michigan, New York, and New Hampshire. Those are big wins. Part of PCBAA's mission to educate, advocate and legislate mission in Washington, is to wring out real policy change and real funding. It's pushing the armed services committees, the appropriations committees, every year to tell the Pentagon, and fund the Pentagon to support our industry. That's one of our core objectives, and I think we've been pretty successful. Unfortunately, coming into FY 2026, we saw that the microelectronics funding lines were zero. Now, part of that has to do with new philosophies, seats, and officials at the Pentagon—the Department of War, as we're now calling it. I think there are some reasons for optimism, even though that funding went away. Is that something that would typically happen, that it would get zeroed out at the next budget? You know, I was surprised, and I think all of us—our partners at GEA, everybody in the industry—were surprised that this was done, because the language from the authorizers says very specifically that the Secretary of Defense shall prioritize investments in printed circuit boards made in America. So, on one hand, you have Congress saying to the Penta- gon, "Prioritize this." We also know that there is an executive agent at the Pentagon. There is an Assis- tant Secretary of War for Industrial-based Policy, Mike Cadenazzi, who was just confirmed a couple of weeks ago. By staffing, by mandate from the Hill, the Pentagon is being told to prioritize American- made microelectronics, so it is surprising to see a zero in the funding line. What I think may happen, where we have cautious optimism, is that there's money in other accounts, for example, the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS). There's nearly $2 billion there. That should be enough, not just for rare earths or rocket motors, but also for printed circuit boards made in America. We will be working with Mr. Cadenazzi, Under Secretary Duffy, and the PCD executive agent based out of Indiana, to say, "Hey, we understand this particular line of the budget was zero. It's an unusual year, budget-wise. Where can we find other monies to make these investments? Because we all know that if you want to have a Golden Dome sys- tem, and triple your acquisition of high-end inter- ceptors from companies like Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed, Boeing, etc., you've got to have a microelectronics supply chain that is trusted, secure, and at capacity. We're being told America's OEMs are being told, "Triple your output." Well, that flows down into their suppliers, and if we're going to do that, and our aerospace and defense ecosystem is operating almost at capacity now, we're going to need some investment from the government." Absolutely. I'll ask you later in this interview about demand signals, because that's obviously very important in the U.S. as opposed to a subsi- dized government, but it occurs to me, as today it was announced that the federal government is shut down, for now, that this is an incredibly dif- ficult environment in which to advocate for any- thing just because of the craziness of the news cycle and where all the attention is going. How is PCBAA managing around this to continue to achieve its goals? I think, like anybody in Washington, we are frus- trated by the inability of legislators to come together and keep the government open. The shutdown is a loss, and I think anybody in our industry would say that. It makes it very difficult to access the right offi- cials. Of course, programs are suspended, and I'm As s i st a nt S e c ret a r y of D efe n s e fo r I n d u st r i a l B a s e Po l i cy, M i ke C a d e n a z z i ▼