Presidents of the Society

Wayne Martin is a Charter Member of the Society and was an attendee at the first meeting in Palo Alto. He is one of two ISHM Presidents who also served as President of the IEPS. He is a Fellow of the Society and has been given the John A. Wagnon and the William D. Ashman awards. He was a co-founder of ISHM. He was one of the co-founders and served as first president of IEPS – International Electronic Packaging Society

Wayne was involved with other societies such as IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) where he served as a past chairman of the PHP (Parts, Hybrids and Packaging) Group. His involvement in SID (Society for Information Display) led to him being given a life membership for his work in creating early concepts of liquid crystal and electroluminescent display technology. NEPCON (National Electronic Packaging and Production Conference) named him Electronic Packaging Engineer of the Year.

Wayne’s career specialty was in technology transfer, creating new products to meet changing markets. He worked on civilian and government projects for a several companies including RCA, Zenith, Raytheon, Illinois Toolworks, Methode and Rohm and Haas. He served as consultant to numerous companies, among them: Ford, Texas Instruments, Timex, and Hughes Aeronautics. He helped in the startup of MITRE and RADLAB. He also served as an independent research associate for Corning. He eventually became a full time consultant.  

He spent many years in the various electronic development areas, both in government and public sector work. He started his computer work on the vacuum tubes for Whirlwind (now at the Smithsonian), one of the first commercial computers. That led to his work in early silicon develop what he called a double diode, which functioned very similar to a transistor. He was also worked in the development of putting chips on substrates, consolidating them into what became known as chips on board (COB).

Wayne’s NASA & DOD work was extremely varied and included the guidance systems for the Chimp launch rocket and the Hawk and Sparrow missile systems. He was also involved in early plasma screen work with the Air Force when working on heads up cockpit displays. He developed the specific melting point glass that seals the glass sections. During the 1980’s he worked on the US Congressional Committee on Superconductivity.

His work on PWB (printed wiring boards) includes developing a new process that replaced copper etching with depositing copper paste directly on laminates. He was also involved with the development of the membrane keyboards and touch panels. He encouraged and helped both Timex and TI to switch from LED to LCD displays. 

Wayne has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University. He has published over 100 technical papers and a book on Marketing. He holds over forty patents.

Wayne served as an international consulting engineer, until retiring in 2005 at age 82 due to health considerations. He is now working on his memoirs, and recently published a book of his WWII experiences, Patton’s Lucky Scout. This book tells of his maverick role as a forward scout for General George S. Patton.