Tag Archives: PCB

TTM: Time to Military?

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TTM is taking no chances with its core defense market.

The fabricator, one of the world’s five largest, has added three directors, all of whom have extensive ties to the US military’s procurement arm.

Dr. Jacques S. Gansler, now at the University of Maryland, was recently Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics at the DoD. Retired Lt. General Ronald W. Iverson is CEO of LGS Innovations, an Alcatel-Lucent subsidiary that serves the US government. And Dr. Dov S. Zakheim is senior vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, where he heads the firm’s global defense business, and a former Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and DoD CFO.

Aerospace and defense make up an estimated 21% of TTM’s overall sales, down from about 45% in 2009 due to the acquisition of Meadville’s PCB unit, which tilted the overall mix toward networking. Still, short of naming Defense Secretary Robert Gates to its board, TTM’s latest moves should ensure the company remains the leading supplier of circuit boards to the DoD for years to come.

Sharper Focus for New Year

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Happy new year! Hope this one’s a sight better than the last.

What’s new at Circuits Assembly in 2010? For starters, we plan to double-down on our technology coverage. Poll after poll of our readers shows we are at our best when we focus on the tech side. Ergo, rather than pushing the same, watered-down press releases you can find anywhere, we are ramping our coverage of new (and improved) processes for assembling and soldering circuit boards, while trying to pin down the issues behind the same.

We also are adding more analysts to discuss the technology’s pros and cons, giving you better insight without having to hop on a plane to attend a pricey tech conference.

We are looking forward to 2010, which we will be a bounce-back year for electronics manufacturing. I don’t predict a return to double-digit growth, but I think gains in the high single-digits are very achievable.