Judy Warner (00:01.73) Hi David, thanks so much for joining us today. I'm excited to catch up with you and find out all the latest and greatest from PCBAA. David (00:12.219) Always great to be here. Thanks, Judy. Judy Warner (00:15.224) So this is, I love that we do sort of this quarterly cadence of catch up because I receive your newsletter and it sounds like a lot is going on since our last conversation. So why don't we jump right into maybe some of the highlights and some of the forward trajectory that you're able to report on over this last quarter. David (00:39.111) Sure, it's a very busy time for the Printed Circuit Board Association of America. And for me personally, as I've been on the road quite a lot, last week I was in Dallas for a meeting hosted by the Printed Circuit Board executive agent at the Pentagon, a really productive industry discussion about how they can invest in our industry and why they believe in trusted, reliable, and secure microelectronics supply chains. Next week, I will be with you at PCB West in San Jose. I'm gonna call on some of our members, some prospective members, and that is just the greatest gathering of who's who in the PCB industry. And I'm looking forward to that Northern California weather here as it gets a little colder in the Northeast. On top of all that travel, you know, we've got some great news coming out of the association. I think we just signed up our 77th new member this morning and we continue to capture the entire ecosystem. We continue to have raw and refined materials, testing and board shops. We continue to have assemblers and of course, OEMs like Raytheon. And we're really proud. to have the entire ecosystem that's underneath semiconductors. As you know, we like to say that chips don't float. And it's very important that everybody who is not part of a TSMC or a Micron or Global Foundries or an Intel who got their investment via the government in the Chips Act, it's very important that we all row in the same direction and pursue some public policy goals that will benefit the rest of the technology stack. Judy Warner (02:01.56) Well, I appreciate you. My last podcast was with Sergey Nestorenko, who is an AI startup company. And he was talking about in hardware, the PCBs are the bottleneck, but they're also going to turn into a quick bottleneck for engineers in the industry. If we're not supporting that, we can output all these chips and all this investment going on in the semiconductors and the data centers and all of that. But if we don't... get a robust domestic supply chain for boards and as you said, the whole ecosystem, we're going to be in big trouble. So first of all, congratulations for adding all those members. And I'm glad to hear that you have also landed some OEMs. tell us a little bit about maybe the conversations you're having in your member meetings and David (02:57.565) Mm-hmm. Judy Warner (02:59.734) You mentioned the Pentagon in Dallas. Maybe can you unpack that a bit more for us as well? David (03:03.621) Yeah, sure. So some people may not know that there is a designated executive agent for printed circuit boards, essentially a peasant on designee who focuses on PCB supply chain issues. He sits in Crane, Indiana at the Naval Surface Warfare Center. He's part of the Navy, but his focus is on all the PCBs that the DOD buys. And so that office held a briefing last week in Dallas to talk about the state of their programs. Of course, there's been a lot of turnover at the Pentagon and now we call it the Department of War and They're changing in a way that is important, right? Because all these assistant secretary and undersecretary and principal deputy secretary jobs are turning over inside the Trump administration. And I say turning over, here we are in September, because just last week, the Senate pushed through a large block of nominees for these positions. You may have heard that there was a bit of a bottleneck in the United States Senate. So many of these jobs that are important to industry are jobs that require confirmation by the Senate. We had this log jam, it was broken last week. And among the 40 nominees who were approved was Michael Katanasi, who will now be the Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Base Policy. Now that's a relatively new job. Mike is the second person to hold it. But we are really excited because everything he has said has been very positive in terms of looking at a holistic approach to build a trusted, reliable and secure supply chain. And of course, when these jobs are empty, You just don't see a lot of action out of the Pentagon. They understand, and you can see this, Judy, in the investments they've made in rocket motors, the investments they've made in rare earths, that they have supply chain challenges, that the technologies that our men and women in uniform depend on, they rest on a bed of lots of different materials, lots of different components, dozens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of factories all over the country. And the Pentagon can ill afford to have foreign dependencies, supply chains that stretch over thousands of miles of ocean. So I'm glad to see serious people like Mike on the job and we will be meeting with him soon to discuss our issues and how we can partner up. Judy Warner (05:10.273) Well, that's great news. was sort of excited about early on this year, hearing some of the comments that Pete Hegseth was talking about. He sounded like he personally was aware of the instability of our domestic supply chain. And I was encouraged by that, but you know, wasn't built in a day. So I'm sure it takes a while for all this to... trickle down and be put in motion. So what else is on the horizon? The membership is just a big deal. I remember when you had like 25. David (05:54.929) I remember when we had five members, the original founding five, and for us to be closing in on hopefully a hundred members by the end of the year, it's real progress. But as I said, we're celebrating two things, right? We're celebrating the fact that folks up and down the supply chain, up and down the ecosystem understand the value, right? There's this direct indirect benefit calculus for board manufacturers, as well as their critical materials suppliers and the assemblers and the OEMs that they sell into. They recognize that a rising tide on this front lifts all boats. The other great thing is, Judy, we're building out our congressional map. Every time we sign up a new member, I put another pin in that map board. It represents another member of Congress and two more senators who now have jobs, tax revenue, technology in their district. And boy, if that doesn't open doors on Capitol Hill. Judy Warner (06:43.041) That's great news. So let's talk a minute about our audience. Of course, you know, I have a passion for PCB since I was part of the industry pre-China and the supply base really going to the East. And so I thought it was a bad idea at the time and I'm really excited about the work that you're doing. Let's talk about, why that's important to design engineers inside of these OEMs and why they should care and maybe get involved in PCBAA or at least track your track and support everything you're doing. David (07:24.583) Sure. So Judy, we have a number of challenges that we're facing and the talent challenge is certainly one of them. And the way that we often talk about this is that the move offshore for manufacturing, it's not simply the loss of a building. It's not simply the loss of output and capacity. It's also very often the loss of research and development, because don't we know that all those engineers, all those design professionals, all those high end professionals, right? They're co-located at the manufacturing site, right? R &D design is co-located with manufacturing. So inevitably, when we move overseas, we sometimes lose the IP rights. We very often lose that professional class, that institutional knowledge, so many valuable things that make iteration and innovation possible. So I think if you're in that space, you want more factories in America, you want more competition in America, you look at 2,200 board shops at the turn of the century and something like 136 board shops now. That's not the employment environment we want for those professionals in your audience. Judy Warner (08:28.479) Right, indeed. it definitely offers, and that investment, you know, that investment both privately and publicly, right, gives us the fuel to rebuild that. And so I think that the work that you're doing really aids and again, securing jobs. And then also for those ones that are designing, making sure that they do have that close David (08:42.493) Mm-hmm. Judy Warner (08:56.237) affordable supply chain here. So let's talk about, we've talked about it before, but I think it's worth retouching on is what you're advocating for as far as the bills that you're proposing and what that offers to maybe some of the engineers in our audience as a benefit. David (09:12.829) Sure. You know, there's an old saying that nobody wants to see how the sausage is made, but I will tell you being knee deep in that process on Capitol Hill has been very educational. And there are a lot of different ways that we can win in Washington. We have of course, a standalone piece of legislation, HR 3597. And it's essentially our CHIPS Act. It has a grant program to be administered through the Department of Commerce. You want to go... invest capital, you want to hire new workers, you want to train them, you want to build factories, buy machines to put into those factories, that's what the capital fund is for. It more importantly has a tax credit, a 25 % tax credit on the purchase of American-made printed circuit boards and integrated circuit substrates. That's a game changer because it creates that all-important demand signal. And Judy, as we've talked about on your show before, the big number in chips isn't the $52 billion that the government committed. It's the in excess of $462 billion that private industry brought off the sidelines for domestic semiconductor manufacturing. When people see that Uncle Sam is backing an industry, that's a sign that it's a safe bet. That's what we want for PCVs in America as well. Now that's not our only vehicle. We also have some domestic sourcing requirements that are coming online soon at the Pentagon, right? What we call section 851 of the National Defense Authorization Act tells the Pentagon. that by January 1st, 2027, they need a plan to get dual use and commercial off the shelf technologies out of our defense supply chain if those technologies come from restricted sources. And Judy, I know that your listeners are familiar with ITAR and probably think, hey, American defense products, that's all made in the USA stuff. They would be right about things inside that ITAR fence. But for dual use in commercial technology, sometimes it's a little embarrassing what the country of origin is on those microelectronic components. And so this rule, which is compromise between industry and suppliers, is going to be implemented soon. We think it's going to create a whole new opportunity for domestic manufacturing. Of course, we also think that there are domestic sourcing requirements that could occur in other branches of the government, on other major projects. That's always a good thing. And finally, last but not least, we think that direct investment through the Pentagon isn't just a good idea, it's proven to work. And I'm referring to the Defense Production Act. Judy Warner (11:32.684) Mm-hmm. David (11:34.961) When you designate a technology like PCBs under the DPA, what you're saying is it's critical to national defense. It cuts a lot of red tape. It speeds Pentagon spending. Now we've had over $118 million given out to companies like Greensource, Calumet, TTM, and Summit. And that money is building UHDI capabilities in the United States right now. It's just a first step. It's not the size and scope of the investment we need, but one of our association's missions is to keep the DPA funded. and to keep those officials at the Pentagon executing on those dollars. Judy Warner (12:09.473) That's exciting stuff, at least to me. And I'm sure, yeah, well, I just think it's good when I think it's one of the things we can unify on politically, whether you're Democrat or Republican jobs, no matter your political viewpoint, it's good for everybody, right? It's good for everybody. It's good for the industry. It's good for engineers that we speak to. So tell our audience. David (12:13.564) To me as well. Judy Warner (12:38.957) how they can get involved, what that looks like, and any other calls to action before I let you go David. David (12:46.375) Sure. Well, first I would say we are looking to grow our team, right, in depth and in breadth. And if you want to learn more about the Printed Circuit Board Association of America, we want to talk to you. Visit us at PCBAA.org, reach out to myself or any members of our leadership team through our social media channels like LinkedIn and Twitter. And of course, we have a variety of membership options for small, medium, large businesses and individuals as well. The important thing is that we grow this team and we put more of those red dots I was talking about on our congressional map. Of course, I want people to follow us on social media. And very importantly, we want to tell your stories. If you are building some key technology, if you are part of a critical infrastructure system, a national defense system, a cutting edge technology, like let's say AI data centers, we want to talk to you because your stories are the stories that are most compelling in Washington. I'm not an engineer. Your audience probably figured that out. but it's my job to help connect those people to the policymakers who can change markets and change their lives. So we wanna hear from folks in the industry. Judy Warner (13:52.139) Well, for our audience, I will definitely get all those links from David and put those for you below. As I've mentioned in the past, I am a member and a fan of this organization because I think it's good for you as I try to advocate for professional engineers in this country and beyond. But if you are here in the US, I highly encourage you to do that. David, any other last thoughts before I let you go? David (14:20.263) Judy, I'll see you in San Jose. I'm really looking forward to it. Judy Warner (14:23.315) I'm looking forward to it as well. For our audience, if you will be attending PCBWESH in Santa Clara next week, please look for David and I will both be there. I would love to see you face to face instead of behind a camera and meet you in person. And I know David would love to engage with you and talk more about the exciting work they're doing. So hopefully I will see you in person next week. If not, remember to always stay connected to the ecosystem.