President's Report -- Phil Garrou

The times they are a changin'

Having grown up in New York City in the early 60's, I can recall sitting in the coffee houses in Greenwich Village, sipping espresso and listening to the music of Bob Dylan. His catchy 1964 tune, "The Times They are A-Changin, "ends with the lines:

"…The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'."

Although those words were written to foretell the coming political and social turbulence of that era, they can be used as well today to express the turbulence in our microelectronics industry. We have all seen the massive layoffs and personnel cuts at the giants like IBM and Motorola in recent years and we have seen the startup foundries in Taiwan, Korea and now China taking over world chip production. Although we usually see these things from afar and have expressed concern for those affected, more and more of us continue to become
affected.

In the last few months, Dow, my employer of 29 years, has undergone a massive top down restructuring which has recently resulted in the elimination of my job. I knew it was coming and in fact predicted it to my co-workers. When all is said and done, the reality of this "new world" in which we are living is that loyalty is between individuals, not the corporation and the individual, and that leaves us all vulnerable to the decisions of whoever is in charge. So… now everyone has to stop calling me Dr. BCB as I begin a new, as of yet undefined, career path

With that said, how can we ameliorate the effects of such workplace actions? Well one way is through our professional affiliations. Your membership in IEEE CPMT offers you access to the latest information available in your field and we all know how valuable that is in the information age. Keeping yourself current is one of the best things you can do to ensure your value in the marketplace. Attending local and national meetings is also important because it allows you to network with other professionals on whom you may some day depend to help you find another job. As in all things in your lives, you need to be proactive and not wait until something bad happens. Think of your IEEE CPMT membership as a preemptive action -- as an insurance policy to ensure a rewarding professional career is always available to you. By the time you read this your IEEE membership renewal will be on its way to you. I hope you all will make the decision to continue your membership.

…Election time

This newsletter will also arrive during a period of elections in the USA. The decisions made by the US voters every four years have an impact on everyone else in the world. It is also election time in IEEE and your CPMT Society. We hope you will take the time to vote in these elections since they will choose the leaders who will make the policy for these organizations that will affect you .

As I mentioned in the last newsletter (V.27 #2), I proposed and the Board of Governors passed, a resolution to change the CPMT bylaws to require voting by region for local representatives. Thus, once the bylaws are rewritten and enacted (2005 elections) we will all be voting for only our local representatives apportioned by the regional percentage of the total membership population. So, North American members will be electing only our North American representatives and the same will be true for Europe and Asia. We think these are positive changes that will allow CPMT management to better reflect the desires of our broad global membership. We hope you agree.

….global management team

One more comment on the globalization process. As you know by now, my management team includes Rolf Aschenbrenner of Germany as Technical VP and Ricky Lee of Hong Kong as VP of Conferences. There were those who questioned whether the organization could operate if it were spread out all over the globe. In fact, there have been no problems whatsoever, most assuredly, due to the fact that computers and the internet have allowed us to communicate smoothly. They have both been a pleasure to work with and I thank them for their hard work and service to the organization.