he 2015 PSMA Planning Meeting was held on September 26 at the Hyatt Regency in Long Beach, CA with 26 members attending. The purpose of the Planning Meeting was to review where the Association is today, discuss outstanding issues and to identify possible programs and projects that promise to bring value to the membership.

PSMA Chairman Ernie Parker led the meeting and reviewed his vision for the organization and provided an overview of the general health of the organization as well as membership statistics and the changes since the 2014 Planning Meeting. He emphasized that the technical committees are the heart of the organization and it is in these committees that the real work of PSMA is done. In discussing some of the areas of concern to the organization he highlighted the need to continue to invest in projects that will bring value to our members, increase the effort to develop more and deeper involvement by member companies and continued commitment to bring more industry content to APEC.

Michel Grenon, Secretary/Treasurer, prepared a 6-Quarter financial forecast which indicated that the Association will remain in reasonable financial position over the period which will allow funding to support Special Projects that promise to bring value to the membership.

There was a report from each of the technical committees which summarized their accomplishments in the past year and ongoing programs and projects. Seven of the technical committees have submitted proposals for Industry Sessions at APEC 2016. In addition:

• Doug Hopkins, the general chair of the 3D-Power Electronics Integration and Manufacturing Symposium (3D-PEIM), reported that the Symposium will be held at North Carolina State University June 13-15 2016. The PSMA Packaging Technical Committee will be the sole financial sponsor of the event with a number of technical sponsors expected including IEEE, CPMT and IMAPS.
• Conor Quinn and Dhaval Dalal are the new Co-Chairs for the Power Technology Roadmap Committee which held its kickoff meeting for the 2017 Roadmap just prior to the Planning Meeting. They discussed the changes planned for the 2017 Roadmap, including starting the webinars in 4Q2015 and 1Q2016.
• The Safety and Compliance Committee is a new committee organized by Kevin Parmenter who is serving as committee Co-Chair. At the meeting Jim Spangler volunteered to be Co-Chair.

Dhaval Dalal and Conor Quinn at Roadmap meeting

Following the committee reports Ernie Parker led an interactive “brain storming” session to list the possible activities and focus for PSMA over the next year (and beyond) that will bring benefit to the membership.

PSMA members can view the minutes of the Planning Meeting on the “Members Only” section of the PSMA web site.

The APEC Technical Program Committee for APEC 2016 met on Sunday and were joined by several of the PSMA members. Based on the results of their work we can all look forward to a very interesting and a successful APEC 2016.

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