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24 The PCB Magazine • December 2015 lion, like an academic association; you would pay a lower membership fee than the classic membership package. And we do offer some individual member packages. As one example, we have an ambas- sador's membership for people that have retired out of the industry. We don't want to lose that knowledge and expertise, so we found a low- cost way to keep them associated with IPC and their industry peers. All of these are very important segments to IPC and we are willing to adapt or shift that mod- el to whatever best suits the needs of the indus- try. We discuss new membership options with the Board once a year, or once every other year, to see if there are some adjustments that need to be made to the membership model. If you look at a lot of the associations out there, companies pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to be mem- bers of associations, and our price point is about $1,200 for a company site membership. Goldman: That's basic membership and then they get discounts on everything beyond that? Mitchell: Exactly. When I first came to IPC, I looked at the membership pricing, and I was sur- prised at how low it was. Before this, I used to sell memberships to college students, and I sold those for a $100 per person, and here, for an en- tire company, it was only ten times that. Com- paratively, this pricing model is inexpensive, but we try to keep the entrance point low because we want to provide more value to our members. Goldman: You want to reach more people and more companies too, right? Mitchell: IPC is a member-driven organization, thus we exist to help our member companies innovate, compete and succeed in the market- place. We're here to help our members create better quality products, enhance their skills and be ready to capitalize on what is next in store for them. We set our membership pricing very competitively. The stronger IPC is as an associa- tion, the stronger our industry is. Goldman: It's pretty much always been that way with IPC. The founding idea was if we all work together, we'll grow this whole industry and that benefits us all—create the standards, get more applications, etc. Mitchell: You'd be surprised how many times that gets brought up at our board meetings. We test everything that we're doing against that. If it's not helping the membership, we shouldn't be doing it. Goldman: It used to be that only PCB companies could be on the board, years and years ago. Sup- pliers and OEMs had an associate-type member- ship but could not have board representation. There was a fear that the other groups would overwhelm the PCB companies. I think the big turning point was when the decision was made to start IPC Expo and then that was expanded to IPC APEX EXPO and of course those companies needed representation. Mitchell: IPC members represent the entire elec- tronics industry supply chain, thus our Board should also represent the entire supply chain. Goldman: So now you've got a broad spectrum. Mitchell: We're trying to make sure the IPC Board represents IPC membership. The Board provides overall policy, vision and strategic di- rection for IPC and thus needs to represent all of IPC membership. Goldman: That's great. John, it's been good to talk to you. Thanks so much for stopping by. Mitchell: Thank you. PCB A CONVERSATION WITH IPC PRESIDENT AND CEO JOHN MITCHELL FeATure inTerview