We have spoken often of the need to encourage the next generation of engineering talent to consider electronics manufacturing as a career path. Writing in PCB UPdate recently, old friend Bob Lazzara put it this way: “Manufacturing has been culturally demonized in America, seen as the root of low-tech sweatshops and high-tech pollution. … Where is the next generation of movers and shakers for the North American electronics manufacturing industry?”

Lazzara’s lament is not new, of course. It’s a familiar refrain, one I’ve been hearing almost since I stepped foot in this industry, some 16 years ago. But I submit it goes further than just engineering. I submit that the industry’s fate relies as much on those outside it as inside it.

That’s why I was so pleased to hear one of our industry’s longtime leaders gave the commencement address at Ohio University a few months ago. For her speech, Dr. Jennie S. Hwang, whom I’ve known since my first few months on the job, drew on her own experiences as an inventor, entrepreneur and parent.

Her address provided many takeaways, some direct, some indirect. In her talk, Dr. Hwang fingered technology as one of the three building blocks of a healthy economy. (The others, she says, are education and workforce.) She seized the opportunity to point out how, in the early ’90s, Sony engineers faced the not-so-small hurdle of furthering miniaturization of the video camera. Then, the story goes, an executive exhorted them to dunk the existing model in a bucket of water. “If bubbles come out,” the executive reportedly said, “there is still room to trim the design.” As Dr. Hwang noted, “The engineers went on and created a phenomenal camcorder the size of a passport. Sales exploded.”

It’s a great little anecdote on the payoffs of never giving up. But smartly, Dr. Hwang didn’t stop there. As she correctly extrapolates, many of today’s top-selling gadgets exist “for creativity and innovation not only in technology but also in education, in art, in design, in business processes, and other areas.”

With that, Dr. Hwang highlighted another strength of America: entrepreneurship. She can draw on her own experience as guide. An émigré from Taipei, she went to school in the U.S., then later became the first female director of technology at Lockheed Martin before launching her own series of companies. (And all, I might add, while she and her husband raised two children who are now successful in their own right.)

We need more of this. For every time someone like Dr. Hwang addresses a large, talented group (some 30,000 people were in the audience that day), it calls attention to the electronics industry. Even though only a relative few among the crowd will ever directly design or build products, legions more will be influenced. Some may choose to go into industry marketing, sales or research. Some will become bankers and investors, the men and women on whom we depend to capitalize our ideas. Others may become involved in politics, perhaps ascending even to the highest levels of government. And all will be voters and taxpayers, with the potential to further influence the fate of electronics in North America.

Dr. Hwang gets this. “This is the very last opportunity that this class of graduates and their family/friends draw an impression of the university,” Dr. Hwang told me. “I personally took this mission seriously for the sake of the university.”

I encourage the captains of the electronics industry to take this thought one step further. For the sake of technology and manufacturing – the twin foundations upon which so much is at stake – our industry leaders should offer themselves as spokespersons not just to the industry, but for the industry. Act now to nurture the next generation of talent, regardless of what field they may end up in. For sooner or later, they will all be our customers.

Trade shows going virtual. Speaking of leadership, our parent company, UP Media Group, will launch in February the industry’s first virtual trade show: Virtual PCB. (OK, I admit that transition was a bit of a stretch.) Virtual PCB is where PCB design, fabrication and assembly equipment and materials buyers can interact with fellow attendees and exhibitors without the hassles and expenses of traveling. We have been researching virtual shows for seven years, and the technology has finally caught up to where it actually looks and feels like a “real” show. While we don’t intend for Virtual PCB to replace the face-to-face experience, it will greatly expand readers’ ability to keep up with what’s going on in the industry, without ever leaving their desks. Look for more details at virtual-pcb.com.

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