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26 The PCB Design Magazine • July 2015 at the former Arlon products, understanding that we are past the due diligence phase with the purchase and now we are into the integra- tion phase. We are trying to understand what capacity we can squeeze out of the former Ar- lon plants to help with the overall future de- mands. Matties: Was the acquisition of Arlon capacity- driven or was it market-driven? Pavlak: It was really primarily market-driven. It got Rogers into markets that we weren't into before. One of the strengths of Arlon is that they are a very strong player in the antenna market. The acquisition brought some new cus- tomers to us. It also provided some new prod- uct breadth and feel that this is a growth area, therefore it was more of a market-driven acqui- sition. Some additional operational capacity also came along with the acquisition. I call it "the pants come with the suit." The factory in Suzhou has some open floor space for addition- al presses and a coating line providing some additional benefits for our operations with the acquisition. The nice part about the Arlon acquisition is we now have two plants in Suzhou; from one plant to the other is about a 45-minute drive. We call the locations Suzhou East and Suzhou West. We have the opportunity to really lever- age the fact that it's in the same city and not that far apart. We can leverage the expertise across the locations and we can look at the ca- pacity across locations. I think that because of the short distance between locations there is a synergy there that's going to help us in our China market. Matties: And china is a booming market. Pavlak: Yes, a majority of our global laminate sales goes to the Asia region. Matties: Arlon did a phenomenal job in china when the markets were dropping and china brought on 3g; it was just a great time for them. Pavlak: They had a very strong year in 2014 as well. Of course, you always get into a lot of dis- cussions when you are purchasing a company and it's all about "what can you do for us right now?" The Arlon acquisition has been very good for Rogers and for Arlon. The former Ar- lon employees are very positive about the fact that Rogers bought them. They were part of a private equity group for a period of time and one of the comments I've heard from several people is, "I'm glad that somebody in the indus- try bought us who understands our wants and needs and what we need to do in the plant to improve." I think everything I've seen so far has been extremely positive from that standpoint. To my knowledge there is nobody in Arlon up- set about the acquisition; I think they're actu- ally relieved that it's over and it was acquired within the industry. Matties: John, thanks for sitting down with me today. PCBDESIGN About John Pavlak John Pavlak started in 1979 with General Motors in the Packard electric Division and worked for General Motors in Delphi for more than a quarter-century. Starting out as a product design engineer, Pavlak then became a senior reliability engineer, quality manager, and eventually worked his way through many operational assignments. he ran two plants for General Motors/Delphi in ohio before moving to alabama, where he worked for eight years and again managed two plants, capping off more than 26 years with GM/ Delphi. after leaving General Motors/Delphi, Pavlak went to Lennox hvaC, which provided a change of pace away from the automotive industry, and into the manufacturing of com - mercial rooftop air conditioning units. For two years he ran their hvaC commercial product factory in Stuggart, arkansas, and then accepted an opportunity with Stoner- idge electronics, based in Juarez, Mexico. after running their global factories for wiring harnesses and electronics manufacturing for more than six years, in mid-2013, John joined Rogers Corporation, where he now serves as the director of global operations. AN UPDATE ON THE ROGERS MATERIAL SUPPLy LINE continues feature