Arizona Chapter 

 The AVS Board of Directors approved the formation of the Arizona Chapter and its by-laws on December 7, 1979.

 The Chapter Chairs were:

Arizona Chapter --- AVS

A Brief History by Mike Kottke

          The Arizona Chapter of the AVS was born in the spring of 1980. Sometime during the preceding winter a small group of people gathered for an evening meeting hosted by Bill Dugger, a long time sales representative for Varian in the Southwest, with the aim of generating interest in the formation of an AVS chapter in Arizona. Discussions between Bill and Art Lowe, recently hired to do thin film deposition at Motorola’s semiconductor research and development laboratories, had precipitated the meeting. Art had been active in the New Mexico Chapter prior to joining Motorola, and Bill was also very familiar with the New Mexico Chapter through vendor exhibits at their annual symposium. In addition to Bill and Art, I believe T.C. Smith, Jerry Peavey and myself (all from Motorola) were the only others in attendance (although it is possible I have forgotten a person or two here). I had joined Motorola in the early spring of 1979 after spending 5 years at Kodak research laboratories in Rochester where I witnessed the founding of the AVS’s Upstate New York Chapter. 

          The AVS board of directors was contacted regarding our interest in forming a chapter and a convenient opportunity to present our idea came when the board was meeting in Albuquerque that spring in conjunction with the New Mexico Chapter’s annual symposium. Bill Dugger volunteered to appear before the board, since he would be in attendance at the vendor exhibit anyway. Bill often recalled how he was grilled by Charlie Duke regarding the viability of a Chapter in Arizona. Nonetheless, the Arizona Chapter was born. 

          To get the Chapter on its feet financially we decided to offer the AVS’s vacuum technology short course in the fall of that year. I volunteered to organize the offering of this course, working through the national office. With Bill Brunner as the instructor the course was very well attended and highly successful. Bill returned often over the next few years to offer his course as part of expanded short course programs.

          Having sound financial footing, the Chapter went about organizing it’s first annual symposium at the Safari Resort in Scottsdale in the spring of 1981. Art Lowe was the prime organizer of the event and because of his earlier association with the New Mexico Chapter our event was modeled very much after theirs. It was a three day long event and also included a small vendor’s show (organized by Bill Dugger) and a short course program. One invited speaker was attached to each half day session and the subject matter was more or less wide open.   This entire format, including the venue, was repeated exactly during the next two years. These first symposia were run in the late winter/early spring to help entice people from colder climates to attend.

          Although the three day long symposium format worked well in the beginning, it soon became apparent that attendance at such a lengthy event could not be maintained. Over the years the Chapter’s symposium evolved into a shorter event. During the late 80s and early 90s there was heavy involvement from students and faculty at Arizona’s three major universities (University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona State University in Tempe, and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff) in the symposium program. In recent years the symposium has further evolved into a one day event concentrating on a specific topic and with a program entirely of invited speakers. A vendor’s exhibit and late afternoon student poster session runs concurrently. The short course program typically has covered a three day period sandwiched around the symposium. With the exception of one year, the annual symposium has always been held in the greater Phoenix area, since there has always been the strong conviction that a vendor’s exhibit would not get necessary attendance anywhere else.

          Dinner meetings have been the other primary Chapter function over the years, typically involving one after dinner speaker, occasionally making use of the National AVS speakers list. The quantity of such meetings in any one year has varied widely, from as few as none to as many as five or six. A few dinner meetings were held in Tucson, the rest in the Phoenix area.

          Like all chapters, the Arizona Chapter has been lucky to receive the strong volunteer efforts of many dedicated people over the years.   At the inevitable risk of omitting someone, I would mention the following individuals in addition to those already mentioned above:  Profs. Neal Armstrong, Jean Pemberton and Charles Falco from the University of Arizona, Profs. Ig Tsong, Peter Williams, Greg Raupp, Tim Cale, and Steve Beaudoin from Arizona State University, Profs. Randy Dillingham and Tim Porter from Northern Arizona University, Bob Davis from IBM, Dave and Lorraine Fischer from Griot Associates, Tom Dory from Intel, Jon Fehr, Joey Davis, Don Knudsen, Harland Tompkins, Bridget Rogers and Steve Voight from Motorola, Ted Deshong from NetMercury, George Prohaska from Carborundum. Currently the Chapter’s board consists of  Tom Dory, Ted Deshong, T.C. Smith, Nate Newman (ASU), Steve Voight, Steve Schauer (Motorola), Bob Christensen (Micro-Tec West) and myself.  

          Below is a list of the Chapter symposia. I include along with this brief overview two documents which contain more detail of the Arizona’s Chapter’s past programs; one spreadsheet each covering short course programs, and the other, vendor exhibits. I began keeping these spreadsheets in the mid 90s. Sadly, by that time some of the documentation on the activities during the earliest years of the Chapter was no longer available, so the information is not complete. Nevertheless, it does provide the best available summary of our programs over the years.”

 On July 14, 1988, the Greater Southwest Ion Implant Users Group was formed in Tempe, in association with the Arizona Chapter. It. Planned to hold  bi-monthly meetings.

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