We've been having a great start to this academic year. In September 2014, the Quality Manager from the Agilent Technologies division that was formerly Varian Vacuum in Lexington, Massachusetts presented the transfer of technology from the US to Malaysia, with emphasis on the quality controls that made it successful. In October, we had a joint meeting with the ESDA-NE (ESD Association, Northeast Chapter) at Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI) in Wilmington, Massachusetts, where Bill Gaffney of ADI presented the top causes of failures of electronics, including ESD (electrostatic discharge) and counterfeits.

Looking back at our past academic year, September 2013 through June 2014, we have had a chapter record for number of attendees. Our tally was 489 people, due to more meetings, with remarkably similar attendance per meeting. To be specific, we had 40.8 people per meeting on average attending 12 meetings this past academic year ending in June 2014 compared to 41.6 people per meeting on average attending 9 meetings the previous academic year. Thanks to all our volunteers on the AdCom and to our members and guests who made this possible.

In November we will have a presentation on ESD protocols, which will be presented by Andrew Kopanski, the ESD expert at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. In December we will hold our annual past chairs meeting and are pleased Eli Brookner, the radar expert, recently retired from Raytheon, has accepted our invitation as our guest speaker. We hope to see you at both of these meetings as well as those that we are planning for 2015. Whether you're reading this as part of our full newsletter or a snippet as part of the Reliability Society newsletter, whether this is online or hardcopy, you can always see our complete newsletter that is current and all our past newsletters on our web site: http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/rl/newsletters.html

I have enjoyed my Chair position since the beginning of 2012, and this might be my last newsletter as Chair. My personal highlights have included hosting the monthly presentations, where I've met many interesting speakers and audience members. Chapter elections for the 2015 calendar year are coming up soon, and we have a roster of strong candidates running for the IEEE Boston Reliability AdCom (Advisory Committee) positions. This has been enjoyable for me due to the support of all my hardworking colleagues donating their time.

Best regards,
Dan Weidman, Ph.D.
2012-2014 Chair
IEEE Boston Reliability Chapter, joint with New Hampshire and Providence, Rhode Island
IEEE Senior Member