From Design To Assembly: How PCEA Connects The Electronics Ecosystem with their President Mike Buetow

Crowded halls at Productronica set the scene, but the real action is the shift from isolated specialties to a connected electronics ecosystem. I sit down with Mike Buetow, President of PCEA (Printed Circuit Engineering Association  and Publisher of Circuits Assembly to talk about the throughline from PCB design to fabrication to assembly—and what it takes to build a workforce ready to carry that vision. From a 40-hour, practitioner-built PCB design curriculum to university partnerships and licensing, we trace how hands-on training and early outreach give students a clear path into hardware careers.

We also address the “missing generation” myth with data and nuance. After the dot-com whiplash and offshoring, the mid-career band thinned, but a new wave under 30 is rising fast. That energy shows up at shows and in startups pushing EDA, manufacturing analytics, and AI. Culture matters: when young engineers see people like themselves on stage and in leadership, they lean in. Surprisingly, gaming and 3D thinking become strengths for layout and systems work—proof that talent pipelines don’t always look like we expect.

Events are evolving to match the systems reality. PCB West and PCB East anchor the calendar, BCB Detroit connects with Wayne State’s training footprint, and PCB East 2026 co-locates with FPGA Horizons while adding a two-day assembly conference. The result is four days that unite PCB, FPGA, and assembly, backed by major vendors and distributors. This is ecosystem engineering—designers learn process limits, assemblers track new packages, and everyone aligns on yield, cost, and reliability before metal is cut. We challenge leaders on Industry 4.0 and AI: the tools exist, the data lakes are filling, but value appears only when management learns the systems, sets real problems, and empowers people to collaborate across silos.

If you care about better DFM, faster ramps, and turning data into decisions, this conversation maps the path forward. Subscribe for more grounded talks with the people building the future of electronics, and leave a review to tell us what topic you want next.

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Transcript

Who PCEA Serves And Why It Exists

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello, I'm Philip Stoughton. I'm at Productronica 2025 and I'm on the Ko-Young booth. I'm joined by Mike Butto of PCEA and of Circuit Assembly. And you know, everybody knows Mike, so this is this is pretty straightforward. Um tell me a bit about what's going on with Printed Circuit uh PCA Print Circuit Engineering Association Engineering Association, but also I'm really interested to hear about what you're doing with the events next year and the assets that you have, kind of media assets that you have, and you're you're looking to elevate that and do a little bit more with that.

Training Programs And Workforce Development

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Right. So thank you for having me on first. Pleasure. Um PCA, I think, as you know, is network for electronics engineers. And so, you know, we focus from design, fabrication, and then to into assembly, and we're really attempting to get everybody to talk to each other. Yeah, okay. So we're really kind of a bottom-up organization. And we offer a variety of different uh programs and products, you know, to help kind of make that happen. Um, the probably the best known would be our PCB East and PCB West trade shows. Yeah, okay. Um we also have, as you mentioned, PCD and F and Circuits Assembly magazine. It's been around for 40 years, okay. So people know. Um I feel like I've been around forever too. So that's kind of well, you're part of the faculty of the industry. Yeah, I think I'm kind of blending into the into the upholstery at this point, right? There you go. Um the I would say that uh from a programming standpoint, um, you know, the the area that's probably uh less known that we offer, but but actually the fastest growing is our training services. And we have a company that we acquired a couple of years ago. That company had a 40-hour um curriculum uh on printed circuit board uh design. And you know, it came with this 400-page handbook, and it was really it was prepared by some of the biggest names in the industry, Rick Hartley's and Gary Ferrari, Susie Webb, Mike Creed, and Steph Chavez, right? So people that everybody knows. And so that program is actually growing faster than than anything. Um we offer that live, we offer it um in a uh uh you know in person or you know by Zoom. Yeah, um, we have some other platforms for delivery that we're uh working on. And the uh that's where really you know we're seeing the biggest need, right? Is workforce development.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah, of course.

Inspiring Students And The “Missing Generation”

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Yeah, and then so we license that to schools and and and companies as well. And one of the things that we do, I like to think that we do fairly well is is evangelize. Yeah. Okay. So we go in and we talk to students, um, and and the and the deans and professors, right? But we're really talking to students and trying to let them know that not only there's a great career to be had in electronics design and manufacturing, but that career even exists, yeah, right? Yeah, absolutely. And nobody's really doing that right now. We talk about the graying of the industry, yeah. And we talk about how you know there's just not enough new people coming in, and whereas I personally would disagree with that broad statement. Yeah, I mean, I've been hearing that since 1991 when I was. Right, and you ask them, you know, how many of you play Minecraft? Yeah, and all the hands go up. Yeah, and how many of you had parents who told you play less Minecraft or play less video games and all the hands go up? I'm like, I'm here to tell you to play more.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Okay, because those games teach you how to think in 3D, which, as you know, as a former designer, absolutely, you know, being able to think in 3D is a great uh predicate for being able to design circuit boards.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

I I heard that just as a side issue, I heard that those gate people that played those games make the best helicopter pilots. They're reactionary. And they can also visualize stuff that's right in front of them, stuff that's up here, stuff that's up here. It's perfect for the way a pilot has to operate an aircraft.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

I'm convinced that the future of electronics design is in my basement right now. Um but the uh what you also get from that though, Phil, is that energy from the students, right? Because we'll bring in other people from industry to talk with them and so that they have a first-hand feel for what their career arc could look like. Yeah. And we're finding more and more former industry personnel are actually going into academia. Yeah, and so they already understand what we're bringing to the table. Yeah. Um, now we're just kind of sealing the deal. Yeah. And that energy, you know, then drives you.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Yeah. I think what's important with them when I think of that workforce talent, and I think we're at a bit of a tipping point with that, is when they come and look at the industry and they come to a trade show, they need to see people that they recognize they could be as the next generation. And I think now we're seeing some younger leaders, we're seeing Stanford graduates show an interest in the industry. We have companies like Arch Systems, Luminovo, those those Co-Factor, all those kind of businesses. I think then there is that excitement, and I am seeing a much stronger generation. I feel like we missed one. I feel like there is a bit of a missing generation of 40-somethings. There's a whole bunch of 50-somethings, 60-somethings plus, but there's now some really uh successful 20-something and 30-somethings. So yeah, I think I feel quite good about that at the moment. I feel like it's moving in the right direction.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Yeah, you're you're preaching to the choir. I mean, if you go back to 99, 2000, 2001, I mean, we lived through that time where the dot-com, you know, bubble and then the burst. And then what happened was all the young folks in the industry kind of got pushed out. You know, a lot of it domestically moved to Asia. Yeah. Um, same with here in Europe, it moved to Asia. And there wasn't a lot of backfilling for a long time. And so if you remember from like your statistics class, it's um it's a binomial distribution, right? It's two bumps. Yeah. Um, but we are seeing, you know, the the there are a lot of people that are over 55, that's the big bump. Yeah. And then the people from like, you know, 30 to 55 is the low bump. And then there's people that are under 30. That that's actually now a bigger, yeah. It's it's growing, okay? It's not as big as the over 55, but it but it is starting to backfill.

Expanding Events: PCB East, West, Detroit

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Yeah, and once it's once that once that bump's got momentum, it'll it'll continue to fill out. Tell me a bit about what's going on with the events this year. You you have a very successful World Story event. Like you, they're part of the fabric of the industry. People are used to used to seeing them, but you have the opportunity to go beyond what you've done with them before and do even more with them.

Breaking Silos Across Design And Assembly

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Right. So, you know, we as you know, we do PCB West, PCB East. Last year, well, in 2025, we added a Midwest show called BCB Detroit. We have that on the campus of Wayne State University, which is actually one of our college licensees for our training program. And you know, we did notice that there was a little bit of a gap in terms of the demographics that were attending our shows. Um the uh PCB East show in 2026, which takes place in the Boston suburbs, we are now co-locating with FPGA Horizons. Okay. Um Adam Taylor from FPGA Horizons is is the guy and uh for that space, and we see FPGA and PCB as really being complementary technologies. The other thing we've done is we've added a two-day assembly conference to that program. So now we have four full days, um four design, two FPGA, two assembly. Okay, and uh Chris Shea, who you may know, is uh putting together the technical conference for us. Nice. Um we have uh quite a few companies that have already signed on, including some of the big component distributors, AMD, which I mean as component guys go, they're right there. Um so some of the other FPGA guys have signed on, and so we already see kind of a push to uh for the assemblers to to join uh what's going on in New England. And there really isn't anything on the East Coast right now for a second.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

And taking a bit a bit more of an ecosystemic approach, which is I think what what we all need to do, we all need to get out of our little silo of you know printed circuit boards or EMS thinking they're different, they're all part of this, you know, this very critical process. When we've been doing work here in Europe with respect to um representing the industry at government level, they need to understand that you know chips are just part of the CHIPS Act. If if you don't get support the PCB industry, you don't support the assembly industry, you don't support everything that's around it, it just doesn't function.

Industry 4.0, AI, And Management’s Role

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Right. So from the from the start, our founders really wanted to create an environment where designers weren't siloed. So they recognized that there was a need for an organization where designers could could get together and talk, right? That's important. Um many times the designers are actually siloed inside of their own companies, but we also know that it's very important for designers to understand what's going on at manufacturing and assembly. Yeah, and so you can design a um a 45-degree angled via buried through 40 layers of a circuit board, yeah, and who could build it, right? Absolutely. So you have to understand as a designer, right? Well, I mean, all the printed electronics guys will say we can, but uh the you have to understand as a designer what the constraints are at fabrication and assembly. And by the same token, um fabricators and assemblers have to understand, you know, how the designers, what the designers are capable of, really, what the new component packages are, um, you know, what really uh what's pushing the boundaries of circuit technology. And so it that really needs all of the above. Yeah. And I'd like to think that, you know, through like our Discord server server, through our our technical conferences, um, we're starting to kind of meld that community together.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

I think it's huge. I mean, you know, for the last 10 years we've been talking about industry 4.0. I'm disappointed with the success we've had, but at least we've got all of the machines connected. And everybody talks about getting data out of the silos, but it's really getting the people out of the silos, getting these individuals out and getting them connected and getting them to collaborate. And I think one thing from Industry 4.0, the dividend might be something that actually enables AI, and I'm excited about that. But the only way we're going to have successful AI is if people share it, because it won't work if it's just like here's an AI on my machine, and or here's an AI that works with my machine and the machine that's next to it. It has to be much larger. So bringing those communities together to develop these ideas is is really exciting.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

I think you nailed it. Okay, there's so many parallels between 4.0 and AI. And it starts with management, where management was going in and saying, What's our industry 4.0 solution? Yeah. Now they're saying what's our AI solution. But I think they're kind of asking the wrong question. And you can't get the data out of the of the system, or maybe as important, you can't use the data to the to the full value that that's of that's available to you unless you have people at all levels really understanding what the capacity is. And I think that that's really where management is management, not engineering level, management is falling down. Or management needs to better understand what industry 4.0 means, yeah, what AI means, okay, what it can do, and what are we doing to teach our people how to use it. Yeah. Not what's our AI AI solution, it's what's our human solution for using this to its full capacity.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah, and this is a tool. What problem are we trying to solve with it? How do we solve that problem? How do we get all the parties collaborating to do that? And that's where it'll that's where it'll the rubber will really hit the road. And I think it does have the ability to tip us over this point where we do get a dividend from all this all this work we've done with Hermes and CFX and getting everything connected because we've managed to create data lakes. Now we just need to harvest the insight and and the value from that.

Building A True Electronics Ecosystem

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Well, and and if you're using AI simply to generate facts, right, that's not what it's there for. Okay, that's not you use Google for Google. Yeah. Okay. If you're just searching facts, use Google. Um if you're using AI to um to do deeper level uh analysis um and uh you know create reports and things like that, it's really good at that. But what what it can't really do right now is is it's not creative thinking, okay? And so it's not creative problem solving. So I I would I would say that we really need to look at Factory 4.0 or even like go back a little bit further. You know, look at your ER pist uh ERP systems and things like that. Are you getting everything out of that that was promised? Yeah, because what it's capable of doing, it is actually capable. You know, like they weren't lying to you when they sold this to you, yeah, but you're probably not using it. And the reason why you're not using it to a full extent is because you, as a manager, didn't learn it yourself. Yeah, and so you don't really know how to implement it. You know, you're relying on you know people below you to do the all the heavy lift.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Yeah, it doesn't work that way, and it doesn't happen, and it's hard to do, and you've got fires to fight every day, and thinking about those long-term strategic things is is a challenge, but it does come down to collaboration and connection, and that happens when there is an environment, there is an ecosystem where you bring the whole supply chain together, and that's what you guys do with your events so well. And the fact that you're now moving that out of the PCB ecosystem and kind of inviting everybody else in, kind of putting your arms out and saying, Hey, come in, have a nice warm hug, and we're we're here for you. I think that's huge. I think it's hugely valuable.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Maybe I should put that on my business card. Mike Buto, we'll give nice warm hugs, warm hugs. There you go. I would say that it's probably less understood by the design side, but I mean we've had Circuits Assembly magazine for 40 years. I mean, this well over 30,000 subscribers. So I mean, we never we've been in the assembly space forever, and you know, we'll continue to be that. Yeah. Um, what we're really trying to do is is force people to talk to each other in a meaningful way. Yeah. Okay. A meaningful way.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Yeah, I think that's hugely valuable. Well, I'd love to give you a warm hug, but I'm gonna settle for a handshake or something. Maybe off camera. Yeah, maybe we'll do that later. Thanks so much for your time and thanks for.