our members of the Board of Directors are elected at the PSMA Annual Meeting held every year during the APEC conference. Each Director serves a three year term and is eligible to be reelected for one additional term.

At the PSMA Annual Meeting in March 2016, Dustin Becker and Brian Narveson were reelected to a second term and new board members Michel Grenon and Conor Quinn were elected. In this issue we would like to introduce you to Michel Grenon and Conor Quinn.

Michel Grenon is the General Manager, North America for Gaia Converter Inc.

Gaia Converter has been a PSMA member since 2004. The company is ISO 9001: 2008 certified and fully comply with the REACH requirements. There are offices on a world wide basis covering Europe, Asia and the Americas. Gaia Converter is one of the leading manufacturers of DC-DC converters, PFC, front end modules and related input protection devices since 1994. Their customers are most of the major players in the Avionics, Military and Transportation industries. Gaia offers a complete architecture that meets or exceeds the stringent requirements of the Hi/Rel standards and the avionics industry. Over 3500 off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions are offered for a wide range of applications. The R&D department is continuously designing new and improved modules to meet the ever changing needs of our customers.

I have been in this Industry for 10 years, coming from the Telecom world, working with such companies as Motorola, Siemens, Nortel and Alcatel, directly or with distributors. The new challenges facing our Industry are both huge and very demanding; however the rewards could also be tremendous.

I want to help in any way I can and to participate closely with this evolution. Being a Director of PSMA allows me to interact with colleagues within the different industries, facing the same challenges and allowing us to make a difference. 

Provided by Michel Grenon,
General Manager, North America,
Gaia Converter Inc.

Conor Quinn’s experience in the power electronics industry spans almost 25 years in design, management and marketing roles. He currently has responsibility for the Industrial and Medical business at Artesyn Embedded Technologies.

Conor holds a BE in Electrical Engineering from University College Cork in Ireland and a PhD from the University of Minnesota. He has been awarded 3 patents in the field of power electronics and control.

Conor has been actively involved in specification and roadmap activities of industry groups including Power Sources Manufacturers Association (PSMA), PMBus™ (Power Management Bus) and PICMG (PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturers Group). He served on the PMBus Board of Directors for 6 years.

As the co-chair of the PSMA Power Technology Roadmap Committee, Conor (together with his other co-chair) is driving the activities leading up to the publication of the 2017 Power Technology Roadmap.

He has also served as the Industry Session co-chair for APEC, organizing this rapidly growing track at both 2015 and 2016 conferences and has been asked to do this again for 2017. This activity involves close co-ordination with other PSMA committees, but also from independent submitters.

Conor believes that what you get out of these organizations is only limited by what you put into them. He looks forward to continuing to build on his PSMA experience by leveraging his years of experience in the power electronics industry and his past involvement with other organizations.

Provided by Conor Quinn, Director,
Technical Marketing,
Artesyn Embedded Technologies

If you or anyone in your company is interested in getting on the distribution list for future issues of PSMA UPDATE, please send e-mail to: power@psma.com. Be sure to include your name and the name of your company.