IPC President's Award: Barry Matties

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

The IPC President’s Award is given to IPC members who have exhibited ongoing leadership in IPC and have made significant contributions of their time and talent to the association and the electronic interconnect industry. Individuals can receive this award only once.

Barry Matties has been a leading global force in publishing content about the electronics industry for nearly 40 years. He began his publishing career as a co-founder of CircuiTree Magazine in 1987, which became the leading printed trade journal serving the PCB industry. After selling CircuiTree in 1999, Barry founded I-Connect007, now the leading online media source for original content related to the electronics manufacturing supply chain. I-Connect007 publishes multiple magazines, newsletters, books, webinars, podcasts, and real-time event coverage.

The following begins an interview between Barry Matties and Pete Starkey, about Barry’s entry into the electronics industry, building a successful business that aligned with his values, and a unique philosophy that has fueled that success.

Leadership That Inspires Change

It's been great to reflect upon the 30-odd years since I bumped into Barry Matties, a long-haired American bloke in a T-shirt and baseball cap, roving around with a camera at productronica in Munich in the 1990s.

It was sometime later that I was privileged to be adopted into his editorial team. As a PCB fabricator, Barry’s publications kept me in touch with industry news and gave me insight into developments and advances in the technology.

In 2022, Barry sold his business, I-Connect007, to IPC and will remain as an executive consultant for several months as he begins to explore other business opportunities. 

Pete Starkey: Barry, what motivated you to create and publish a new magazine for the industry back in the 1980s? 

Barry Matties: I was probably about 23 or 24 years old, and I realized the only way to create the lifestyle that I wanted for me and my family was to create my own business. I realized I would never achieve it by working for somebody else. I didn't know anything about business, publishing magazines, leadership, or really any other business skill, but the timing was right, and I was driven to learn and succeed. 

In 1987, we pioneered desktop publishing and launched CircuiTree magazine. We were challenging the publishing paradigm, and because we did not know the rules of publishing, it allowed us to compete against much larger magazines in ways they did not expect. 

Starkey: Your tagline is “good for the industry.” Why do you believe it matters to promote electronics? 

Matties: It's important to have an information source that's good for the industry. Our business strategy is simple: Publish content that people want to share. You can describe that in many ways—relevant, timely, useful, entertaining—whatever resonates with someone. Everyone has a different opinion of what's important to them. We try to bring in a diverse bit of content, but it's always designed to help build electronics better, which turned out great because as, you know, we were acquired by IPC, and that fits really well with I-Connect007. 

Continue reading this article in the Spring 2025 issue of IPC Community.