Gathering Around the EMS Table

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When I entered the EMS provider industry 30 years ago, I attended some early IPC EMS management meetings. While I enjoyed the planned presentations, I especially valued the roundtable discussions with other industry peers. They not only provided an excellent opportunity to foster new relationships but also allowed me to listen to others facing similar challenges, who often addressed them in innovative ways that I could benefit from.

More recently, I have reflected on those past roundtable experiences and how we could expand these benefits to a larger audience without extensive planning or travel. During this time, I attended an annual face-to-face meeting of EMS executives hosted by Cirtronics in Milford, New Hampshire, USA, where I observed a similar collaboration. Bolstered by what I had seen and with great support from IPC staff, we launched the first IPC Regional EMS Leadership Roundtable at our IPC headquarters in Bannockburn, Illinois, USA, in July 2023.

Since then, we have hosted Regional EMS Leadership Roundtables in 10 regions. Based on positive feedback, we are expanding our locations and returning to most of the same locales. We have now hosted over 100 attendees from more than 70 EMS companies at Regional Roundtables. We have not allowed “outsiders”—participants need to be directly involved in operating EMS organizations—and most who attend are at a senior level of their organization.

The Roundtables typically run from 4–8 p.m. We have dinner and introductions, and then I share EMS industry demographics and some other unique supply chain and financial EMS industry data. Conversations often go later than 8 p.m. because our groups are deep in conversation around important topics.

To read the rest of this article, which appeared in the Winter 2025 issue of IPC Community, click here.