Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/924542
JANUARY 2018 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 67 Goldman: How many engineers, or how many sets of mentors and engineers are there right now? Rowe: We have two that will be in their third year with us, and we have three in their sec- ond year. We are now looking at our applicants for our first-year group starting in 2018. The in- teresting part of this is that for our second-year group we actually have a university student who is one of our emerging engineers. We were excited in our second year to bring an individ- ual on board who is a student, as opposed to actually working in the industry at the current time. He has developed a real interest in IPC and he's taking on a larger role, too, with some activities that Nancy has been working on. Goldman: You said you have applicants. How does that part work? Who applies and how do you determine who you accept? Rowe: There is an application process. We ask applicants to complete a benefits and commit- ments paper or page, which is on our website for the emerging engineer program [1] . That ex- plains the commitment for three years; as we both said, it is a three-year commitment for this program. We ask the individual to acknowl - edge that and for their supervisor, or the per- son they report to, to acknowledge that this is a three-year commitment on their part. We have had requests for additional information such as 'What do I do beyond the events?' for example. We've been able to work with each individual to understand their concerns as they're worried about that three-year time commitment. It does take that paper and it also takes a copy of their resumé. When that information comes to Nan - cy and me, we sit down together and review it to determine if that person meets the qualifi- cations and requirements, and then we fill our slots accor dingly. We do have situations where organizations have asked for the person's mentor to be from their company, as well. We've been able to match those individuals up, where the men- tor is someone who may be mentoring that in- dividual at their company now. In other cases, it's someone from their organization, but may- be from a different site or a different location around the world. We've also had companies come to us and say, 'I have an emerging engi- neer candidate, and I would truly like to have someone mentor them who is not part of our organization to give them a broader knowl- edge base of other organizations and the way to rest of the world works.' Jonathan Zinski: When you go through the application process, how many slots do you have to fill? Rowe: We have been talking about five for our current year, plus a university student. Goldman: I guess you need to have mentors, which I presume are mostly committee chair- men? Would that be accurate? Jaster: We do have chairs that have been men- tors, but the key is really that they're an active member on a committee. We want somebody who can work with the emerging engineer and direct them to the right standards committees that they may be interested and want to par - ticipate in. They don't necessarily have to be a chair , but it does have to be somebody who has been involved in the standards activities. IPC APEX EXPO 2018 PRE-SHOW SPECIAL COVERAGE