Inducted May 2012

Dutch engineer R. J. Klein Wassink (born 1933) literally wrote the book on electronics soldering and assembly. His seminal work, the 470-page Soldering in Electronics, was first published in 1984. Revised in 1989, the updated manual weighed in at nearly 800 pages. It quickly became a standard part of every engineer's toolkit. In 1995, he followed that tome with the 510-page Manufacturing Techniques for Surface Mounted Assemblies (revised in 2001). He is perhaps the most referenced electronics engineer in the English speaking world.

Wassink spent the better part of his career at Philips' Centre for Manufacturing Technology in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, where he developed soldering and assembly processes for what was then the world's second-largest electronics manufacturer. He graduated in metallurgy from the Technical University in Delft, Holland, in 1962. He spent 1962 to 1974 as a researcher in metals and ceramic technology at Philips Research Laboratories, then led the Centre for Manufacturing Technology (CFT), which researched mounting technology and soldering. Near the end of his career, he became scientific advisor within the Circuit Technology department of the CFT.