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Ron Hicks is the chair of the board of directors for the Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS).

Michelle: I know you've been in metrology for a long time and now are leading CMS. Could you tell us a little bit about the organization and what's your vision for the future of the society?

Ron: Well, I've been a member of CMS since the mid ‘80s. It's been quite a while. I've spent time on the executive committee, and, I think, I was chairman, which they're now calling president, but I was chairman three times and in other capacities as well.

So, it's been quite a journey for me with CMS. It's been a tremendous group. And it really helped my metrology career. Just being able to know people and get key insights and learn was most valuable to me in my career. I owe CMS a lot. I know a lot of people say their life would be different without it and it kind of changed the trajectory once they got involved.

Michelle: Absolutely. That's great. So, since you've been in the leadership role a few times, are there any things you're looking forward to doing this time?

Ron: Well, we stood up a board of directors just before Covid and it was a down period during Covid, obviously. But we continued to meet through that period of time just over Zoom or Teams or whatever and have done some good work in my opinion.

And the reason we really wanted the board, it was quite evident just running the executive committee, that some of us got together and said, “You know, the way this is set up, the chairman of the executive committee was only in that position for one year.” So, you really could only concentrate on putting together a conference. You really didn't have enough time to grow the society, if you will.

It was just all hands on deck for the conference. And we have, and they still do, put on a tremendous conference every year. We're very proud of that. And it's top notch. And we get a lot of kudos from others in the industry.

Somebody from Europe was just telling me the other day they were comparing their conference to CMS, and they said, “You know, we have the best thing going on so far that they've ever been to.”