S04-E01 Michelle is a thin film vacuum technician

Michelle is a lead thin film vacuum technician at MKS Instruments at the Richardson Gratings Lab in Rochester, NY. Michelle started out working as an operator, then gained additional skills by enrolling in a vacuum technician certificate program at Normandale Community College. Hear Michelle’s story about how she took her career to the next level.

The Talking Technicians podcast is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program.

Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation.

Join the conversation. If you are a working technician or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org.

Links from the show:

Episode Web Page: https://micronanoeducation.org/students-parents/talking-technicians-podcast/

Normandale Community College Vacuum and Thin Film Program: https://www.normandale.edu/academics/degrees-certificates/vacuum-and-thin-film-technology/index.html 

MKS Richardson Gratings: https://www.newport.com/b/richardson-gratings

Transcript

Peter Kazarinoff  0:02  
From MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center, this is Talking Technicians. The podcast about technicians: who they are, what they do, and where they come from. I'm your host, Peter Kazarinoff. I teach technicians and engineers that Portland Community College. In each episode, you'll meet a working technician and hear their story. That means real interviews, with real technicians, about real jobs. At the end of each episode, you'll hear actions you can take if you want to be a technician too.

In this episode, you'll meet Michelle. Michelle is a lead thin film vacuum technician at MKS Instruments at the Richardson Gradings Lab in Rochester, New York. Michelle, welcome to Talking technicians.

Michelle  0:57  
Hi, Peter. Good to be here.

Peter Kazarinoff  0:59  
Michelle. You live in Rochester, New York. What's Rochester known for?

Michelle  1:04  
We're known for Kodak Bausch and Lomb, Corning, we're mostly optics center in our area. We have a lot of smaller places to.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:17  
And Michelle, how long have you been in Rochester? And what brought you there?

Michelle  1:22  
Ah, 47 years my whole life I was born here.

Peter Kazarinoff  1:25  
Born and raised. So. So that's why you know that industry footprint so well. So you work at MKS Instruments at the Richardson Gradings Lab. What is the Richardson Gradings Lab? And then how does that relate to MKS Instruments?

Michelle  1:43  
 So the gradings lab, we are a special niche in the optics world, we produce diffraction gratings, We're known for our shells. Right now we're the only ones with the technology to produce them. When the sole provider for specific customers that make you make the chips, so our gradings go into the lasers that help cut and produce your summer the chips for what are like cell phones, TVs.

Peter Kazarinoff  2:15  
So your company makes these gratings. And then those gradings go into lasers. And it's those lasers that then go on to make the microchips Am I understanding that Right? Correct. Michelle, you're a lead thin film vacuum technician? That's a whole lot of words, what is a thin film vacuum technician? What what did those technicians do?

Michelle  2:40  
So I produce a thin film in a vacuum chamber. So I can I take aluminum? I pump it down into vacuum, we heat it up to what we call equilibrium, which is your vapor, and I produce it then film onto the gradings that actually will, what's the best way to where to change the optical properties of the substrate? So that's essentially the simplified form of what I do.

Peter Kazarinoff  3:11  
And when you deposit these materials on these grading substrates about How thick are they? Is it something like thick as paint that you can see? Or do you have to control the layer thickness really precisely?

Michelle  3:26  
Yeah. Metals are opaque. So yes, you see it dielectrics necessarily aren't opaque. So it depends on your thickness of what you put down. So thickness is dependent on the optical property. So it could be anything from 250 angstroms to a micron or thicker it depends on the process and the product that it's being used for.

Peter Kazarinoff  3:55  
So I have an idea kind of of what a thin film vacuum technician does. But Michelle, what is it like for you day to day at work? Can you describe a typical day?

Michelle  4:06  
Typical day would be assessing any chamber issues, troubleshooting and fixing own scheduling workflows, scheduling preventative maintenance, keeping the chambers and the actual thin films themselves in calibration. We have to qualify each film when it comes out of the chamber through testing thickness and reflectance. I also work help engineering and their projects that have to do with coding and help consult with that and run their test runs. And you know scheduling over time and working on projects for new customers coming in and helping develop new processes for.

Peter Kazarinoff  4:53  
It sounds like a busy day Michelle. So do you work with other technicians or do you also work with engineers, researchers, and people in business?

Michelle  5:02  
All of the above.

Peter Kazarinoff  5:03  
You work with all of those different job types.

Michelle  5:06  
Yes. And I've been in the industry 23 years.

Peter Kazarinoff  5:11  
So you've worked in the vacuum industry for 23 years? What did it feel like your first day at work? What did it feel like the first time going in? Do you remember?

Michelle  5:22  
I was in way over my head I, a friend of my family's works for Melis. Grieux. And they needed a glass cleaner. When an intern interviewed and I had no idea what they meant by glass cleaner, I thought maybe like washing dishes are windows. And I ended up cleaning deep UV optics, by drag white drag wiping oh man kind of just working my way up because they got interested into the chambers and how they worked and how to produce the film.

Peter Kazarinoff  5:51  
So how did you go from that very first job and the optics industry up to where you are now?

Michelle  5:57  
Moved around in order to move forward.

Peter Kazarinoff  6:01  
And so each new company that you worked at, you got a little bit extra responsibility.

Michelle  6:08  
Correct. And I've been at the gradings lab now for 19 years. So that being said, they've pretty much I've set on my career there. And I'm moving forward there.

Peter Kazarinoff  6:18  
Michelle, can you provide a ballpark salary for a technician working in the vacuum or optics industry like you're

Michelle  6:28  
dependent on your skill set? So where I'm at, I make approximately 65 a year, walking in the door without experience anywhere? Maybe 30? To 35?

Peter Kazarinoff  6:41  
And Michelle, do you feel like there are opportunities for professional growth at your company?

Michelle  6:47  
With the program I'm taking? Yes, yes.

Peter Kazarinoff  6:51  
And what about things like benefits of retirement or health care, dental benefits?

Michelle  6:58  
We have an excellent panel, we have excellent benefit package, and we have a very decent 401k program also.

Peter Kazarinoff  7:05  
Great. So it's good to be supported by your employer in that way. Do you do shift work? Or do you have a nine to five schedule five days a week?

Michelle  7:16  
I'm a shift Monday through Friday. That being said, being the lead tech, I'm on call 24/7 for troubleshooting and maintaining the chambers or any issues with the films?

Peter Kazarinoff  7:29  
And do you get paid extra if you do overtime? Or do extra hours each week?

Michelle  7:34  
Yeah, absolutely. And we also have a rule if we get called in off hours, ever. They're under four hours, and we get paid for hours. So if I go in for 20 minutes, I'll still get paid four hours overtime for it.

Peter Kazarinoff  7:47  
So it sounds like your company compensates you a bunch for this work.

Michelle  7:51  
Yeah, they're really good about that.

Peter Kazarinoff  7:54  
So let's switch gears a little bit and talk about how you got to where you are now. What was your education before you started working in the industry? What was that kind of background like?

Michelle  8:08  
Um, I dropped out of school a long time ago and I just received a GED. I walked in with nothing and kind of worked my way up.

Peter Kazarinoff  8:17  
What sort of skills do you think that folks are going to need if they're the ones that are going to go into that upticks industry?

Michelle  8:27  
Mechanically kind definitely. Want to be paying attention to detail? And patience, a lot of patience.

Peter Kazarinoff  8:39  
Why do you say that was a lot of patience necessary?

Michelle  8:42  
Um, it can be overwhelming at once. And it's a lot to take in. And there's a lot of detail and each process is specific to the product and there's exception to the rules. You're also not only are you producing the film's you want to look at the substrates and the cosmetics. And you'd be very detailed with the process and be able to follow your path back in case things go wrong. You need to be very diligent in your setup. One simple little thing can change every parameter and a lot of things like that.

Peter Kazarinoff  9:17  
Michelle, what would you say is the hardest part of your job?

Michelle  9:21  
Troubleshooting. It's like finding a needle in a haystack with vacuum. spend four to five days trying to narrow down a leak trying to find point where that may be.

Peter Kazarinoff  9:35  
What kind of vacuum levels are we talking about here?

Michelle  9:39  
Negative seven scale that we're on, we're on, we're in low vacuum, we're in very low vacuum.

Peter Kazarinoff  9:46  
And about how big are the chambers that you have to pump down and pull out all of the gases out?

Michelle  9:53  
Two of the chambers they run are very unique. They're the only ones that exist in the world. They were well back you Welding chambers that were turned into backing chambers. Many, many moons ago when the gradings. They have just started up. And now they were used for r&d, but now they're in production. The ones a 42 inch bell jar and the other ones are 36 and spell jar. Then that's all I could give you on those. But we do have a Bowsers and that's 36 inch box, she bird, we also have two other chambers that are 54 inch box chambers. We have a replica of or 36 Boneyard. And we have a small sputtering chamber that has three targets on.

Peter Kazarinoff  10:39  
Michelle, we were talking about the vacuum chambers, how long does it take to pump those down and pull all the gas out of them?

Michelle  10:47  
Well, that being said, that varies on your process, the volume of the chamber. And if you heat or don't see, we have very fast pump downs, and we measure it depending on where we are on the vacuum scale. So for us, we range anywhere, excuse me for 15 to 30 minutes. That means that other companies I've worked for that have different processes could take a couple hours.

Peter Kazarinoff  11:20  
So you've got to wait some time once you start pumping the chamber down. So Michelle, can you talk a little bit about how your life changed when you became a technician? What was different after you started working in the optics and vacuum industry?

Michelle  11:41  
I had a career I had benefits. I went from managing Burger King and Taco Bell working, split chef on uneven shifts and being a single parent to now having an a chef. A consistent schedule, benefits time off sick time, weekends off. And I had a career path to start working towards. 

Peter Kazarinoff  12:05  
So Michelle, it sounds like working as a technician really transformed your life.

Michelle  12:10  
Yes, for me personally. Yes.

Peter Kazarinoff  12:14  
So Michelle, what advice would you give to current students or people who want to transition their careers and work in your industry? What would you tell them?

Michelle  12:24  
I think it's a good move. It's interesting what we do, every company I've worked for, depending on what's going on in the world, or new technology coming out my hands were a part of it and making the apdex A few years ago Normandale started there, thin film that came technology certifications in the vacuum maintenance technology certification and advertised it if they are able to do that, I think it's phenomenal where I am in Rochester, New York, we don't have a program like this anywhere. They offered it, everything was online. And my mentor pushed me to do it. I didn't think I could with you know, just a minimal education. And I'm excelling in it. And that put me into the next level on my career. And I'm on a career path to keep moving forward with my second certification. And they give you all the tools you need. And it was able, so like an app, I was an operator for many, many years where I just pressed the one where I was able to take this as soon as I started and start applying it fill in all the holes in the chemistry, the physics with it. And it put me into a completely different level and understanding and really made things interesting now. So if someone was interested in doing it, you could do it without the education. But you could also do it and getting the education as you go. And it changed a lot for me in order men doing it.

Peter Kazarinoff  13:59  
So Michelle, enrolling at Normandale Community College in their vacuum tech program that helped you advance in your career, even though you already were working at that company. Now you have additional things that you can do. And now your career is moving forward.

Michelle  14:16  
Yes, and I got a significant raise with it.

Peter Kazarinoff  14:20  
That's great to hear. 

Michelle  14:21  
Yeah, it'sawesome. It was awesome.- plugging the holes to have okay, I know I gotta press this button and if it goes wrong, you got to go here, but now I know why I'm pressing it, why it's going wrong, how to apply the chemistry and the physics I've learned behind it. It's cool.

Peter Kazarinoff  14:41  
And even living in Rochester, New York, you were able to take that program because the courses were online. Is that right?

Michelle  14:50  
Correct. The only thing I have to do for the vacuum maintenance technology certification, I will have to take my AC/DC circuits and the fluid mechanics at MCC because you need to be present there for the labs and transfer those credits over. All of my other courses I've taken I have taken online through Normandale. Right.

Peter Kazarinoff  15:10  
So you took some, you're gonna have to take some classes at your local community college, the ones that have in-person hands-on-labs, but those specialized vacuum courses that aren't offered at every community college, that's something that you can take online through Normandale. That's great. It's a great program.

Michelle  15:31  
Yeah, it's been really cool. And the professor's they've had were phenomenal with understanding my education level was much lower than my skill set level. And they did everything they could to help me like excel in it. And I got really good grades and I was very confident at the end of the courses.

Peter Kazarinoff  15:52  
So Michelle, do you have a final call to action for students, or people who want to transition their career and become a technician like you?

Michelle  16:01  
Do it. You have nothing to lose, and it's a great career and it's really interesting.

Peter Kazarinoff  16:09  
Well, Michelle, thank you so much for sharing your story with me on Talking Technicians. 

Michelle  16:14  
Thank you.

Peter Kazarinoff  16:15  
Please keep in touch.

Michelle  16:16  
I will, thank you.

Peter Kazarinoff  16:24  
Talking Technicians is produced by MNT-EC, the Micro Nano Technology Education Center through financial support from the National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant program. Opinions expressed on this podcast do not necessarily represent those of the National Science Foundation. Join the conversation: If you are a working technician, or know someone who is, reach out to us at info@talkingtechnicians.org. We're always looking out for great guests to share more stories with you.