Inducted May 2012

Jim Raby has spent his entire career -- more than 55 years -- in electronics manufacturing. Starting with the Saturn/Apollo Program, Raby became synonymous with soldering and high reliability printed circuit assemblies. He is credited for developing the NASA and Navy (the famous China Lake) soldering schools, and was instrumental in developing the IPC soldering certification curriculum, used by the vast majority of the industry today. He initiated the Electronics Manufacturing Productivity Facility (now known as the American Competitiveness Institute). All in all, he has trained tens of thousands of engineers and operators.

He has been issued patents for wave soldering and embedded components, and initiated the Zero Defect Program for wave soldering. He also was the driver of  the Lights Out Factory concept that revolutionized the modern electronics manufacturing facility.

For more than 30 years, Raby worked on industry standards, including DOD-STD-2000, MIL-STD-2000, J-STD-001 and IPC-A-610. He also helped write and implement standards for wire harnesses. He has been involved in the research for lead-free solder processes and materials. His seminal paper, "Standardization of Military Specifications," was the roadmap for reducing some 219 specifications into a single four-document set known as MIL-STD-2000, the precursor to J-STD-001 and IPC-A-610. He has worked on more than a dozen standards and training programs, and chaired or vice-chaired committees on soldering, rework and repair, component mounting, and product assurance. He wrote the curriculum and conducted beta testing for IPC training programs for J-STD-001, IPC-A-610D, IPC/WHMA-A-620, and IPC-7711/7721A, and received the IPC Presidents Award in 1984.