Movers and Shakers: Brian Chislea of Dow Making a Difference for FIRST Robotics

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

My passion for STEM, mentoring, and our electronics industry is both professional and personal. I’m a scientist and application engineer at Dow Chemical, as well as an IPC standards committee leader and a mentor for burgeoning engineers. Most importantly, my personal life revolves around helping kids become involved in STEM activities, so when I saw an opportunity to be a mentor for my son’s middle school robotics program, I couldn’t pass it up.

Within IPC, my focus is on the protective materials for PCBA. This leverages my electrical engineering (EE) background in  some aspects of dielectric strength and electrochemical migration. That bridge between material science and electrical performance gives me an opportunity to learn from a broad range of industry experts. I’m now able to pay that knowledge forward through mentoring opportunities with IPC’s Emerging Engineering program, the STEM events at IPC APEX EXPO, and FIRST Robotics.

My children attend the Freeland Community School District in Freeland, Michigan. The Freeland Fabricators is the FIRST robotics program there. In this school district, the FIRST teams are under a single umbrella of mentorship. I am one of more than two dozen mentors alongside a very dedicated group of coaches who work with students of all ages. There are nearly 90 students participating in the FIRST Lego League (FLL) for elementary school, FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) for middle school, and the FIRST Robotics Challenge (FRC) for high school.

In 2019, when my son was a sixth grader, he joined one of the school’s FTC robotics teams. This sparked for him an interest in programming, science, and engineering. Unfortunately, the 2020-21 season was lost due to the pandemic, however, he continued his advancement by taking several online programming classes.

Continue reading this article in the fall 2023 issue of IPC Community.