Our sparsely populated examination room at Fort Lauderdale.

As compared to one of three test centers, (Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya), where a total of 215 iNARTE Certification candidates were examined in 2010.

This year at the EMC 2010 Symposium in Fort Lauderdale, iNARTE did not have as many examination candidates as in recent years. In fact, we ended the week with just 11 candidates, although during the exhibition hours we had the usual level of booth activity and general interest.

     Of course, we understand that the economic climate could have prevented many companies from supporting their younger engineers’ travel budgets, and this may have been a contributing factor.
     However, it is also a sign of the times that by the end of 2010, or at the latest by Spring of 2011, the iNARTE membership in Asia will be almost the same as that in the USA; in fact, we expect more than half of our EMC Certificate holders will be from Japan alone.
     Perhaps in the USA our traditional EMC Certification program is focused too much on EMC Test Engineering and Mitigating Engineering, skills that are needed at, or close to, manufacturing centers. And, as the manufacturing jobs are lost from the US, so too will these support functions be lost.
     Having this in mind, iNARTE will be introducing a new EMC Certification program in 2011, one that we hope we will have ready to launch with examinations at the EMC 2011 Symposium in Long Beach. “EMC Design Engineering”, the new iNARTE program, is intended for those working at the design and development end of the electronics industry. We think that these skills have more likely been retained at corporate headquarters facilities and not dispersed globally with the manufacturing. We also think that these skills have become more attractive to the younger engineering graduates.
     Skill sets for the EMC Design Engineer, and the details as to the administration of the new program are in preparation now. In defining these details, we are working with our Regional Partners in Japan and we now have Program Development Teams working both in Japan and in the USA. Each Team is made up of experts and senior engineers from major global corporations, from academia and from supporting institutes and associations.
     iNARTE will publish more complete details about this exciting new certification program during the next two months. The best way to keep informed on our progress and to determine if this new credential is something that could be of value to you, is to regularly visit our web site, www.narte.org. We think that many of our existing members will also want to add this new credential to their armory. It will complement our current EMC certification program, and could be the tool you need to boost your professional development.               EMC