Tarja Rapala-Virtanen Named as EIPC's New Technical Director

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The board of directors of the European Institute for the PCB Community (EIPC) are delighted to announce that they have appointed Tarja Rapala-Virtanen as their new technical director.  
 
It is doubtful that anyone in the PCB industry will not have heard of Tarja, but just in case here is a little bit about her.  Tarja Rapala-Virtanen studied in Åbo Akademi, Turku, Finland and finished with a M.Sc degree in chemical engineering. She has over 25 years’ experience in managing complex electronics projects in multicultural environments. She is multi-talented technology professional having comprehensive experience and know-how in all key PCB processes and technologies. She has been leading global engineering and R&D functions both in Finland and China, and her ability to build multidisciplinary teams to deliver advanced interconnection solutions has enabled her to be involved in the management and coordination of international collaboration projects in FIN, EU, US and China. The strong technology competence combined with her commercial know-how has been a good asset in road mapping, new process & product development, customer support and technical sales.  
 
She has published several technical articles and conference papers in international conferences organized by IPC, EIPC, IMAPS, IEEE around the world, and has given lessons in PCB technology in Finnish technical Universities as invited guest.
 
At the Electronic Circuit World Convention 8 (ECWC8) in Tokyo in 1999 and at the ECWC9 in Cologne in 2002, she received the “Best Paper Award” for outstanding work and communication about advanced technology development in future PCB technology. In 2006 she received the coveted outstanding paper award from Emerald LiteratiNetwork
 
Tarja is the perfect successor to Michael Weinhold who served the Institute for so many years, and EIPC is very proud and happy that she has agreed to join us.