Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/811341
20 The PCB Design Magazine • April 2017 Matties: Oh, we're seeing it everywhere. I'm sure you're starting to see it in your factories too and with the equipment talking to each other and so on. This is really a fast-moving time. I certainly ap- preciate you gentlemen taking the time today to share your thoughts and insights with us. Goldman: This ought to help our readers a great deal. Matties: Our whole point is how do we help the industry improve overall and you guys are help- ing with that and it's good for all of us to have a strong industry, so thank you. Partida: Yes. Thank you. Menning: You're welcome. PCBDESIGN FABRICATORS SPEAK OUT ON HIGH-SPEED MATERIALS I have known Ray Pritchard for a long time—as long as I've been involved with IPC, in fact. He directed the organization for 35 years before turning over the reins. One could say he grew up with the organi- zation—or vice versa. Ray was always a bundle of energy and still is, still joking and warm; he is a great people person, and I am sure he had a little something to do with the spirit of camaraderie and cooperation that is the hallmark of the IPC organization we know today. That's why it was such a pleasure to sit down with Ray Pritchard in a quiet corner during this 60 th anniversary year and listen to him talk about his early involvement in getting a fledgling orga- nization, with just a handful of members, off the ground and running. Patty Goldman: Ray, it is so wonderful to see you. The founding members brought you in to run the organization back in the beginning, am I correct? Pritchard: That was an interesting story. These young entrepreneurs, they were a new in- dustry. Nobody knew them. Nobody had heard of printed circuits at the time, because every- thing was plugged in with wires. They were meeting in Chicago at the Palmer House in 1957, and they said, "You know, we'd like to have a trade as- sociation. We've got all these problems. We don't know what to do about them." Somebody said, "Why don't we look in the yellow pages and find a professional high-class organization that could help us?" Our company was right next door. It was called H.P. Dolan and Associates. It sounded pro- fessional, like there were all kinds of people, but I was the "associates." Harry Dolan at that time was out of the office, so Gene Jones and Bill Mc- Ginley walked in, and I'm sure when they saw this young-looking kid—though I was 30 years old—they thought, "What are we doing here?" I'd made a flip chart showing things we had done for the six associations we were working for, and they were all manufacturing associa- tions, so they all had needs for standards and technical work and improving the technology and all that. Then they needed market data, and they needed all kinds of things, but we'd done them all. So they saw my chart flipping, and they said, "Come on over to the Palmer House, and we'll talk to you about what you might be able to do." Click here to read the full interview. Ray Pritchard Looks Back at IPC's Beginning and His Role in Getting it Started