IPC Designers Council San Diego Chapter Meeting: Flex Focus Fills the House

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Warner: Do you have officers who help support the chapter?

Griffith: Yes, I have a great support staff, and it’s these people that make this all work. Our board members are as follows:

Our vice president is Ben Savage, CID, from NeoTech. Ben is the one who fills in for anybody in the group and helps with meeting setups and teardowns, from manning the booth at the electronic shows to picking up drinks for meetings. He also emcees some of our meeting from time to time.

Our secretary is Luke Hausherr, CID, from San Diego PCB. Luke is the one who puts together the email announcements for all of our meetings and maintains our membership list, and he takes minutes at the board meeting.  He also fills a major role in getting our meeting location set up since he works at SDPCB. He’s also the son Tom Hausherr of PCB Libraries, and he’s well on this way to surpassing his dad someday in the San Diego PCB world.

Treasurer Bill Gebhardt, CID+, from General Atomics is the one who meets you at the door, signs people in, and takes their $10 donations. He been the chapter’s one and only treasurer since the beginning and also buys most of the raffle prizes that we give out at each meeting.

Our education director is Crystal Hardy of APCT. Crystal finds most of our speakers for us. She also handles ordering, picking up the food, and setting up our meetings locations as well.  We couldn’t do it without her.

Warner: How many designers typically turn out for a meeting?

Griffith: We have on average 40 people per meeting, and at the Del Mar Show we have been averaging 70 to 80 each year.  I know that most of our members are PCB designers, but we also have others from all aspects of the electronic industry who are regular attendees.

Warner: What do you think is most important to running a successful Designers Council chapter, and what advice would you give someone wanting to start or grow a chapter?

Griffith: Well, I can tell you what our goal is: To help PCB designers get better at their jobs. Since I’ve been SDDC president, all I’ve wanted to do is to guide this chapter, to help PCB designers like myself learn and increase their knowledge of PCB design and layout. PCB designers are a small group and there really isn’t a lot formal training on the subject, so after finding out what people are talking about or having problems with, we try to identify a speaker on the subject.

One thing you must do is mix it up and try to keep it fresh to encourage members to keep coming back. We’ve been very lucky, and it’s worked so far.  My advice is, if you’re thinking about helping or running chapter, do it. You won’t regret it!  Ask your fellow designers what’s bugging them about their current or past designs. Was it the memory routing or power supply circuitry, or HDI? Whatever is on their minds. Find a place to hold a meeting and someone to help by giving a one-hour presentation on the subject and you too could run a successful chapter.

Warner: Well, Bob, I would say you and your great team have been very successful, because you are reportedly the second-largest chapter in the country. Congratulations! I certainly enjoy every meeting and learn something new each time I attend. When is your next meeting and how do people find chapter information and get on your mailing list?

Griffith: Our next meeting is March 16, 2017 at Philips Respironics in Carlsbad from 11:30 am to 1: 30 pm. The topic is automated PCB test using ICT test points, and how to make changes later, when you must. Interested attendees can email Luke Hausherr at luke.hausherr@sdpcb.com to be added to our mailing list.

Warner: Thank you so much.

Griffith: Thank you.

Editor's Note: I also want to thank Summit Interconnect for donating the GoPro5 that this humble journalist was lucky enough to win, just in time for IPC APEX EXPO 2017.

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