IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
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76 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2026 APEX EXPO: The Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future O n the eve of APEX EXPO 2026, the Ana- heim Convention Center in California rests in a rare and fragile quiet. The lights are dimmed, the escalators are still, and the long corridors echo with only the distant sounds of crews finishing their work. In the corner of a long hallway, an engineer sits alone, wondering why he's even there. "I have too much work to get done," he thinks, as he looks down at the large stack of active proj- ects—schematics marked with revisions and stan- dards, and notebooks filled with hurried notes and half-finished thoughts—spread across his lap and at his feet. He's good at what he does. Years of experience of difficult decisions have sharpened his skills. But recently, the pace has been unrelenting and frus- trating. What once energized him now feels heavy and tedious. The joy he used to find in solving problems has been replaced by pressure to move faster, ship sooner, and make fewer mistakes with less time. He isn't sure what he's searching for anymore, only that something important has been missing for a while. He closes his eyes and listens to the muted clat- ter as crews assemble booths on the exhibit floor. Then something shifts in the stillness. It's not a sound, but the sense that the weight he's been E L E M E N TA RY, M R . WAT S O N BY JOHN WATSON, PALOMAR COLLEGE