"The David Feldman award is given annually to an individual
for outstanding contributions to the fields encompassed by the
CPMT Society through invention, technical development or executive
or managerial direction," explains Rao Bonda, chair of the
IEEE CPMT awards committee. "Ron was chosen to receive this
award in recognition of his continuous and meritorious service
to the CPMT and electronic packaging technology."
An IEEE Fellow, Gedney has been a member of the organization since
1957 and has been actively involved in leadership of the CPMT
Society since 1979 when he took over as chair of Technical Committee
6 (Electronic Packaging). In this role, he helped organize and
chaired the first VLSI Packaging Workshop in 1980.
In 1988, Gedney was elected to CPMT’s Board of Governors
and, in 1990, was elected president of the society. During his
tenure as president, the CPMT Society initiated a packaging fellowship,
sponsored by Motorola. Gedney also drove a number of financial
reforms, which led to the society being able to hire a staff executive
and develop a fund to cover travel expenses for the Board of Governors.
As chair of the Awards Committee (1992-96), Gedney developed several
new awards: one for contributions to manufacturing technology,
one for sustained technical contributions, an award for young
engineers (under 35) for outstanding work in the society’s
field of interest, plus two best paper awards for articles in
the society’s refereed journals, the three-part IEEE CPMT
Transactions.
In 1994, Gedney founded the Binghamton Chapter of CPMT and founded
and chaired the Ball Grid Array Packaging Workshop, sponsored
jointly by the CPMT Society and the chapter.
In his years of involvement, Gedney has held several other positions
in the CPMT Society and is currently secretary and a member of
the Board of Governors.
Gedney’s career includes 35 years with IBM in the development,
manufacturing and procurement of electronic components and packaging.
After retiring from IBM in 1992, he consulted with several major
corporations and worked as a research analyst for the Integrated
Electronics Engineering Center, State University of New York,
in Binghamton. He joined NEMI in November of 1996.
Gedney is a graduate of Tufts University with a degree in electrical
engineering. In addition to IEEE, he is a member of ASME and
IMAPS.
(ed.) The National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative was formed
in November 1994 to facilitate long-term North American leadership
in electronics. The industry-led consortium is made up of more
than 50 electronic equipment manufacturers, suppliers, associations,
government agencies and universities. –Press release from
NEMI