Mind Meld: Brian Chislea and AJ Arriaga Share Their Fascinating Experience in IPC's Mentorship Program

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

IPC’s Emerging Engineer program provides professionals an opportunity early in their careers to learn from dedicated industry volunteers participating in standards development. Two participants in the program—Brian Chislea, Dow Chemical, mentor to AJ Arriaga, Summit Interconnect—share their experiences in the program in a series of articles. We will follow them through their three years in the mentorship. This is the first in the series.

Name: Brian J. Chislea
Occupation: Scientist and Application Engineer, Dow Chemical
Achievements: 27 years of industrial experience
My expectation for being a mentor: Unlike teaching or presenting, being a mentor is a two-way interaction. As a mentor, you can be both a student and a teacher while networking with peers of similar interests. I find more value in this type of interaction than just presenting a body of work because you can broaden your industry knowledge beyond your area of focus. The IPC Emerging Engineer Program encourages attendance at several networking events and provides dedicated resources for the success of the program. AJ and I will engage in the mentorship program for three years. I feel that’s enough time to see the broad range of activities, build a solid network, and ultimately help AJ start contributing within the IPC community for early career professionals.

Name: Jorge A. (AJ) Arriaga
Occupation: Chemical Process Engineer, Summit Interconnect
Education: Bachelor of Engineering, BE Chemical and Biological Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Colorado State University
My expectations: I hoped to attend IPC meetings with my mentor and get an inside view of their work and why they’re important. Brian leads a committee, so I thought it would be interesting to see what goes into IPC committees. I also expected to attend some interesting professional development courses and learn together. What I didn’t expect, however, was Brian’s popularity, as he introduced me to many people involved in IPC. It was a great networking experience for me.

Learn more about Brian and AJ in the Winter 2025 issue of IPC Community, where they share some of their professional and personal experience and passions, and how they got involved in the IPC mentorship program. Click here!