ver 60 PSMA members and guests attended the PSMA Annual Meeting, held at the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center in Long Beach, CA during APEC 2016.

The buffet breakfast before the meeting start provided attendees an opportunity for networking and meeting colleagues. Outgoing Chairman Ernie Parker officially opened the meeting by welcoming all the attendees and asked each to briefly introduce themselves. Among those present were many of the 43 recipients of the APEC Student Travel Support. This support is provided jointly by IAS, PELS and PSMA and attracted 126 applicants from 58 different schools in 21 countries.

The first item on the agenda was the election of four people to the Board of Directors. The following candidates were elected to the Board of Directors for the three-year term (2016-2019):

Eric Persson, Incoming Chair, acknowledged the leadership provided by Ernie Parker the past two years and his contributions to the Power Technology Roadmap and Packaging Committees and support of the PSMA workshops. He presented Ernie with a Special Recognition award.

Eric also presented Special Recognition Awards to the following individuals for their contributions to the Association in the past year:

• Michel Grenon for his oversight and contributions serving as the Association as Treasurer/ Secretary for the past four years on the Executive Committee.
  
• Matt Wilkowski for his overall leadership and contributions as Chair in organizing the very successful “Power Magnetics@ High Frequency – Solving the Black Magic” workshop.
  
• Kevin Parmenter for his leadership in organizing the new PSMA Safety and Compliance Technical Committee and sponsoring the first APEC Industry Session on Safety and Compliance.
  
• Mike Hayes for his leadership in organizing and attracting people to participate in the PSMA Energy Harvesting Technical Committee which had gone dormant for the past years. The new PSMA Energy Harvesting Technical Committee also presented a Power Technology webinar on energy harvesting technology and trends.

Eric Persson presenting award to Michel Grenon

Eric Persson presenting award to Mike Hayes

Eric then discussed his vision for the Association going forward and encouraged all members to pick one or two of the Technical Committees and to participate in their activities as being the best way for people to increase the benefits of membership. He is focused on expanding PSMA cooperation with CPSS and EPSMA and on encouraging the Technical Committees to sponsor workshops that address emerging technologies and applications. He also acknowledged the many contributions from the PSMA Technical Committees in organizing seven Industry Sessions for APEC 2016.

Following the Chairman’s Report was a financial Report presented by Michel Grenon, Secretary/ Treasurer who reviewed the current financial status of the Association and presented a six quarter forecast. The financial status and outlook for the Association continues to be good with sufficient funds to support a number of Special Projects that can be of benefit of the membership.

Incoming Chair Eric Persson presenting award to Outgoing Chair Ernie Parker

Alireza Khaligh

Each of the PSMA Committees presented a report. You can read more about these on page 3 of this issue.

Jonathan Kimball

Alireza Khaligh, General Chair for APEC 2016, provided an update on the overall conference. APEC2016 will set a number of records for this annual event. These include:
• Number of Digests submitted (1212) and accepted (563)
• Number of Industry Session Presentations (119)
• Number of Registrations (4670 as of Monday morning)
• Number of companies exhibiting (268) and number of Exhibition Booths (408)

APEC 2016 is expected to be a financial success in addition to providing the attendees with an outstanding program of Professional Seminars, Plenary Presentations, Technical and Industry Sessions and provocative Rap Session topics.

Jonathan Kimball, Program Chair for APEC 2016 and General Chair for APEC 2017, reported that planning for APEC 2017 is well underway. The conference will be held at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, FL from March 26 through March 30, 2017. The Call for Papers is included in this issue of the Update and more information will be available in coming weeks.

The invited speaker at this year’s Annual Meeting was Paul Lee, the Vice Chairman and Secretariat of the European Power Sources Manufacturers Association (EPSMA). He reviewed the current membership and focus of the organization. He reported that the organization currently has 26 member companies and work to influence international standards. EPSMA has an active Technical committee that publish technical papers that share best practice and design guides amongst the member companies.

Paul Lee

The minutes from the PSMA Annual Meeting have been posted in the Members Only area of the PSMA web site together with the charts from the presentations.

The Annual Meeting, PSMA Committee meetings, as well as the technical sessions, seminars, Industry Presentations, exhibits and other events kept PSMA members busy all the week. The APEC social event, featuring the music of the Beach Toys, gave everyone a chance to relax and enjoy themselves.

There was a full exhibit hall at APEC 2016. Many of the PSMA member companies exhibiting participated in a “Passport” game in which attendees who visited their booths had their passport booklets stamped. Attendees turned in their completed passports for a chance to win an iPad mini. Traffic to members’ booths was brisk and the lucky winner was very happy with his prize.

The lucky winner of an iPad mini claims his prize

If you or anyone in your company is interested in getting on the distribution list for future issues of PSMA UPDATE, please send e-mail to: power@psma.com. Be sure to include your name and the name of your company.