Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/710139
54 SMT Magazine • August 2016 I-Connect007 is proud to introduce the I-Connect007 Good for the Industry award. This new and prestigious award is bestowed upon in- dividuals and companies that are good for the industry. What exactly does "good for the industry" mean? At I-Connect007 we believe it means helping the industry improve cycle time, lower cost, increase yields, build better products, increase profitability, reduce waste, become overall more effi- cient, do things differently, and motivate and inspire others to do the same—all things that are good for the industry. This is what we at I-Connect007 do every day…we believe in this, and we know others do, too. We want to recognize those people that are good for the industry and share their stories. Our goal is to consis- tently bring our readers fresh new content related to those characteristics listed above. Throughout the past year, the I- Connect007 team has done this by conducting interviews all over the world with hundreds of people from the industry, from congressmen to electrical engineering teenage prodigies to some of the top PCB executives. These interviews have given us a unique perspective into the industry as we have met all sorts of people and listened to, and then shared their stories. We hope they're as much fun to read as they are to conduct. It was through one of these in- terviews that we first caught wind of a revolutionary new automated PCB fabrication shop in New Hamp- shire, being built as a captive facil- ity—Whelen Engineering. The man behind the innovative design is Alex Stepinski. Why is Alex Stepinski good for the industry? Alex Stepinski is good for the industry because of his first-of-a- kind, proof-of-concept creation—a fully au- tomated PCB factory with zero waste water discharge—and his and Whelen Engineering's will- SPECIAL REPORT