Thursday’s Spring Break Networking Social was informal, fun and very informative and we would like to thank our Event Sponsors for the evening, Out of The Box Manufacturing (Brian Trumbull) and Meta Fab ( Tim Varela) who gave us a brief introduction to their companies and with a special thanks to our co-host for the evening the ERA – Pacific Northwest Chapter.
Event Sponsors
Diana (EMA Chair) and Art (ERA) welcomed over 40 Members and guests while Mike (EMA Treasurer) introduced our new “Event Calendar” webpage. In addition to listing upcoming EMA Events we have added a Tab that lists selected Events from our partner organizations that we feel will be of interest to EMA members. Our partners are The Gorge Technology Alliance, Hillsboro Camber and the Electronics Representatives Association – NW Chapter.
Ruth introduced our newest Members and presented them with their 2017 Membership certificates Local Fresh LLC – Kevin Schrandt and Out of the Box Manufacturing – Brian Trumbull. Ruth also acknowledged Renewal Memberships from CASE Forensics, Allied Technologies Intl and Adapt Electronics.
The highlight of the evening was a Q&A session hosted by Rafael (EMA Outreach Chair) for continuous improvement and solicited input on how we (The EMA) can be more responsive to our membership.
Suggestions from EMA Social Event March 30, 2017
- Attendees want to know who does what of those attending so they better connect with talent they need.
- Suggested a listing at the meeting of who’s there & what they do.
- This could be a speed round of introductions or setting the room like a “speed dating” event where we have 3 mins to intro & talk one-on-one to those attending.
- Highlight a topic and Introduce a top-3 experts in the crowd for folks to better understand their expertise.
- Member Spotlight
- Open Mic/Floor – Introduce yourself to the group and/or share your news.
- Supply Chain (Event) was mentioned several times!
- Distribution needs to have more representation
- Perhaps invite IEEE members to our event for better connections to meet audience needs.
- Hosting Factory Tours at companies was desired (this had a lot of interest)
- ITAR (Event)
- Improve web awareness (SEO) by using Google Ad Words
We would like to thank all participants for their wonderful suggestions and recommendations, these and many other suggestions will be reviewed at upcoming board meeting and I’m sure many will be implemented in future Networking Events.