2024 iNEMI Dedicated Service Awards

Award Criteria

This award honors individuals for unusual dedicated voluntary service to iNEMI marked by outstanding performance, demonstrated effective leadership, and committed service. It is presented to selected individuals who have served iNEMI in many capacities.
 

Eligibility Requirements

• 3+ years of committed service
• Provided significant technical contributions to a roadmap development or project work
• Supported the growth of iNEMI membership
• Developed a leadership pipeline for future technical projects and/or Board of Directors members
• Must be employed by an iNEMI member organization in good standing 

2024 Winners

• Mostafa Aghazadeh, Intel
• Marc Benowitz, Nokia Bell Labs (retired) and iNEMI (retired)
• Ed Kelley, Four Peaks Innovation (previously with Isola Group)
• Ed Tinsley, Dell (retired)

 

Mostafa Aghazadeh 
Corporate Vice President, Intel

Mostafa has been a longtime advocate and supporter of iNEMI. He has not only made suggestions on how to drive iNEMI forward but, most importantly, has helped to make it happen. In his 20+ years of service to iNEMI Mostafa has always “been there" for the consortium. He supported iNEMI projects as a member of the Intel staff, he advocated the benefits of iNEMI internally and externally, then as a member of the iNEMI Board and, eventually, Chairman, he helped charter and steer iNEMI and served as a coach/advisor to iNEMI leadership. 
 
Mostafa has been unflagging in his efforts to suggest new potential members, identify contacts, follow up to make the introductions and personally advocate iNEMI benefits to them (many of them now iNEMI members). 
 
He is a recognized expert and organizational leader in microelectronic packaging and assembly technologies. Through his leadership roles on the iNEMI Board, he has been a strong advocate and influencer of iNEMI to maintain its relevancy via new project/technology areas and opportunities in areas such as advanced packaging, CHIPS Act, low-temperature solders, and more. He has been active in identifying new areas for iNEMI to focus on and helping build teams (including Intel resources) to support the resulting new projects.

 

Marc Benowitz
Nokia Bell Labs (retired) and iNEMI (retired)
Executive Advisor to the iNEMI Board of Directors

Over his long and successful career at Bell Labs, Marc showed exceptional service, steadfast dedication, strong leadership and outstanding performance on key projects and roadmaps of high impact to iNEMI members and to the electronics industry at large. Marc’s personal journey of service to iNEMI spanned 25 years as a participant as well as a leader and co-leader of numerous projects impacting materials science and the challenges impacting the electronics industry, such as the elimination of lead in electronics.

He continued his leadership by serving on the iNEMI Board of Directors, became Chairman of the Board (2013-2018), and then served as CEO of iNEMI (2018-2021), providing executive leadership that further advanced iNEMI's programs, projects and membership expansion and fulfillment. Since his retirement from iNEMI, he has served as Executive Advisor to the Board. 

Marc’s focus was always on executing projects that were relevant and timely for the electronics industry, with notable contributions in areas such as environmental sustainability and smart manufacturing.

• He had a strong passion for and dedication to solving the problems associated with environmental sustainability in electronics. He worked on projects associated with eliminating hazardous substances from electronics such as lead, chromium, cadmium, polyvinyl chloride, and halogenated flame retardants. He also focused on measuring the eco-impact of electronics products over their full life cycle, with particular attention to developing tools that members could easily use to assess their products.   
   
• In the area of smart manufacturing Marc led efforts to resolve electronics manufacturing challenges and to find opportunities to close gaps via collaborative innovation across the electronics industry. Most importantly, he focused on what industry collaboration can further bring in developing/driving industry infrastructure to close existing gaps, such as stimulating standards and common specifications development, and disseminating efficient and effective best practices and guidelines.

 

Ed Kelley
CEO, Four Peaks Innovation
Former Chief Technology Officer & Senior Vice President, Technology, Isola Group

Ed Kelley is presently CEO of Four Peaks Innovation, a consultancy firm. Prior to this he was Chief Technology Officer for Isola Group, which is a long-standing member of iNEMI.

Since early 2019 Ed has been consistently involved in leading iNEMI activities in the area of PCBs and laminates. As Chair of iNEMI’s PCB & Laminates Technology Integration Group (TIG) he spearheaded and revitalized the group over a period of about four years, leading directly to the launch of four new projects in 2022-24 and identification of additional new initiatives to be developed. He has also chaired and/or been an active participant in numerous projects.

As part of his work with the TIG, Ed led the team that produced the PCB & Laminates Technical Plan from the 2019 Organic PCB Roadmap. Additionally, he helped lead development and review of content for the current roadmap on PCB topics and has leveraged his extensive network to help identify and invite experts to participate in iNEMI roadmap content development.  

Ed has worked closely with many members throughout the supply chain ensuring that PCB projects and activities of the TIG are beneficial and provide value to their membership. His personal efforts to identify common challenges for the supply chain and promote collaborative projects that bring value have had a very positive influence on retaining iNEMI members and recruiting new members. Two key examples of his impactful service to iNEMI include:
 

• Expanding the knowledgebase for PCB and laminates technologies by involving key industry stakeholders outside of iNEMI membership in technical presentations as part of the PCB & Laminates TIG meetings in areas of copper foil for high-speed applications, glass cloth developments, laser drilling of microvias holes and plans future presentations on measurement techniques for electrical characterization of PCB base materials. 
   
• Leveraging his industry contacts to contribute to support project objectives whether they are members or non-members, such as the essential and significant supply of copper foil (and associated topology measurements) from Circuit Foil and Denkai America for the Reliability & Loss Properties of Copper Foils for 5G Applications Project. 
   

Ed Tinsley
Reliability Director and Senior Member of the Technical Staff, Dell (retired)

Ed was involved with iNEMI since the early 2000s. He was an active participant in numerous projects on a broad range of topics, helping to drive work related to reliability, sustainability and PCB assembly. He also contributed to the iNEMI Roadmap. 

In 2009, Ed joined the iNEMI Technical Committee, which helps review strategy and emerging areas for projects as well as the roadmap. He served on the TC for 15 years — until his retirement in 2024.  Ed’s experience with reliability issues meant he was very insightful when reviewing projects on PCB and board assembly. He also did a very good job of pulling manpower from Dell to support project needs, His team was supportive of all the solder-related projects and he was very influential on PCB projects and in getting connector companies on board to do projects together.