Four Industry Leaders Receive IPC President’s Award

Michael Ford, Dale Lee, Joe O’Neil and S. Manian Ramkumar honored for their on-going leadership in IPC and the electronics industry

In recognition of their significant contributions of time, talent and ongoing leadership in IPC and the electronics industry, four IPC volunteers were presented with IPC President’s Awards at IPC APEX EXPO 2020. Award recipients were Michael Ford, Aegis Software; Dale Lee, Plexus Corporation; Joe O’Neil, Green Circuits; and S Manian Ramkumar, Ph.D., Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

Ford was honored for his thought leadership on Industry 4.0 and his considerable contributions to IPC industry standards, including the Connected Factory Exchange (CFX) and IPC-1782 traceability standard. An active participant on more than a dozen IPC technical committees and a sought-after speaker on software solutions for assembly manufacturing, Ford helps to promote and position IPC’s digital manufacturing best practices by contributing articles, columns and blogs to several leading industry publications.

Lee was recognized for his extensive knowledge in DFX analysis, root cause failure analysis related to design, process and tooling impacts on manufacturing processes and yields. Currently serving on more than 10 technical committees, including the PERM council, the land pattern subcommittee, the DFX standards subcommittee, and the ball grid array task group.

O’Neil, recent immediate past Chairman of the IPC Board of Directors, was honored for his work on the V9-20 PCB President’s Management Council Steering Committee, the G-10 Government Relations Steering Committee, the G-11 IPC Department of Defense Task Force, the G-11A, Defense Road Map Task Group, and the G-12, Government Relations Grassroots Participants committee. An active participant in the IPC Cares program as well as IPC’s Workforce Champions initiative, O’Neil was one of a four-member IPC team presenting the initiative to the U.S. White House in 2019.

Dr. Ramkumar was recognized for his frequent instruction of courses for the electronics packaging industry. A subject matter expert in robotics, automated manufacturing and surface mount electronics assembly education and research, he was instrumental in establishing the advanced manufacturing and electronics packaging laboratories at RIT. An active participant in technical conference sessions at IPC APEX EXPO, Dr. Ramkumar has been a valued instructor on advanced packaging, surface mount, soldering and assembly process topics since 2002, educating hundreds of his industry peers at various workshops and conferences.

“The contributions that Dale, Michael, Joe and Ram have made to IPC and the electronics industry cannot be overstated,” said John Mitchell, IPC president and CEO. “Their leadership and willingness to share their time and expertise with us has been invaluable.”