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October 2005

DesignerCouncil@IPC.ORG

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Subject:
From:
"Brooks,Bill" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
(Designers Council Forum)
Date:
Mon, 10 Oct 2005 14:58:35 -0700
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Fellow PCB Designers,

As you know there are a limited number of events for PCB Designers to attend
during the year to update their skills and advance their careers and PCB
East in New Hampshire is one of those opportunities. I actually became aware
there was a Designers Council back in March of 2000 while attending the PCB
West Conference in Santa Clara by stumbling across the booth they had on the
showroom floor nestled between CAD vendors and PCB manufacturers and
Assembly company's booths. That's where I got my first copies of IPC-2221,
IPC-2222 and IPC-SM-782 and started using them. This is a great event for
designers and should not be missed if you can get out there for a day or two
and take in some of the great programs they have to offer.

There will be a number of seminars being held there run by fellow DC members
like, Suzy Webb, Gary Ferrari, Rick Hartley and Andy Kowalewski.
http://www.pcbeast.com/conf/bios.html

Make sure to stop by the IPC DC booth on the exhibitor floor...
http://www.pcbeast.com/exhibition/ and say hello to Dieter Bergman of the
IPC who is the presenter of the Keynote Address, entitled, "The
Designer--Preparing for the Next Decade".
http://www.pcbeast.com/special/#keynote


If you have not made yourself acquainted with the PCB East and West
conferences for designers you can find out more about the training and
activities going on there at the website.
http://pcbeast.com/

Best regards,

Bill Brooks - KG6VVP
PCB Design Engineer, C.I.D.+, C.I.I.
Tel: (760)597-1500 Ext 3772 Fax: (760)597-1510
Datron World Communications, Inc.
_______________________________________
San Diego Chapter of the IPC Designers Council
Communications Officer, Web Manager
http://dcchapters.ipc.org/SanDiego/
http://pcbwizards.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Brooks [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, October 01, 2005 12:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [DC] Difference between PCB designer and PCB design Engineer

Very good description JaMi.

I think that broadness of experience weighs heavily on rightfully tacking
the title 'Engineer' on the back end of any Designer's professional
moniker...  Being non-degreed has always been an impediment to breaking
through the 'glass ceiling' placed to keep the separation between the hourly
and the salaried employees. Most of the PCB designers I have known have
never had a degree from any college... and I have known many EE's and ME's
that had a long history of being successful at project development and were
paid as much as their degreed peers even though they did not attend a 4 or 6
year college program and get a degree... in fact some commanded greater
respect for their years of experience and the fact that they worked their
way up from the bottom rather than chasing after the degree.

But the managers always take into account the level of education you have
achieved as a mark of your intelligence and ability to 'run the gauntlet' so
to speak. By passing the curriculum, you go through an initiation of sorts
that afterward makes you 'equal' in their eyes I think... or maybe I am
still suffering from some sort of juvenile jealousy that I have carried with
me all these years... it's hard to say.

I can see now since I am almost 50 that it would have helped me early in my
career to a degree to have spent the time in college and obtained the piece
of paper that represents an standard rounded out education but I would have
missed out on some of the years of experience that I can now draw upon when
faced with a design challenge... still, monetarily it would have helped me
advance to more challenging rolls in the engineering field... possibly. So
much of your career depends upon chance and opportunity to land a job in the
field of interest... most of us took whatever came along because we needed
to eat and pay rent.

I'm still fascinated with what makes a designer a designer. I have met a lot
of designers in my life and most of them seem to have a stronger 'right
brain' influence in their natural skills. Music, art, creativity are large
influences in their personalities... A few are not like that of course but
they apply their math and analytical skills to design problems. There's no
real explanation for 'why' they become designers other than exposure to the
opportunity to work in this field and the personal curiosity and
satisfaction that comes with the rewards of taking on a design challenge and
seeing it through to being manufactured.

Those of us that are still doing design are in my opinion 'addicted' to the
field and find the challenge of bringing all their 'jack of all trades'
skills you speak of to bear in solving a design challenge and there really
isn't any college that can teach that... you either have it or you don't.

At least Certification recognizes a designer for their level of knowledge...
and it sets a goal or level for others to achieve when going into this
profession. I still believe there needs to be more work done on a classroom
curriculum and a text book or books that will help bring new people into the
field of PCB design and attempt to capture the knowledge we have acquired
over the last 40 or so years and put it out there so they have a way to get
where we are at a younger age with the advantage of not having to make the
mistakes that some have made along the way... Many of us will be retired
before long and who will carry keep the profession alive?



Bill Brooks,
PCB Design Engineer, CID+

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