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Efren Lopez directs learning services
at KLA-Tencor
He’s applying his wide range of engineering experience to training semiconductor service engineers, working with teams around the world
 Efren Lopez is senior director of learning and knowledge services for KLA-Tencor, Inc (Santa Clara, CA), a leader in process control for semiconductor manufacturing lines. Lopez has transitioned from technical work to management, and is currently applying his wide range of engineering experience to training service engineers in the complex semiconductor industry.
A start in nuclear power
Lopez earned his 1990 BS in aeronautical engineering at California Polytechnic State University. But he graduated to
find very few jobs open in aeronautics, so he went to work as
a field service engineer in General Electric’s nuclear division
(San Jose, CA).
It was a wide-ranging job. Lopez traveled to reactor sites in Taiwan, Japan, France and Mexico, helping customers during refueling and maintenance outages of GE nuclear reactors.
In 1992 he moved to Mexico for the construction phase of a new nuclear power plant. He was there for two years, overseeing plant fabrication and testing and bringing the system online. “The customer liked my work and asked to keep me there,” he remarks.
In 1994 he returned to San Jose as a mechanical design engineer for nuclear reactors. But he found that he missed the communication challenges of his plant construction and startup days. “I got tired of designing. I wanted to harness my technical and people skills together,” he says.
After some research and career counseling, he decided to make a change. He opted for a move to the semiconductor field because of the growth in semiconductor manufacturing.
Semiconductor instructor
In 1995 Lopez went to work as a technical instructor at Tencor Instruments (now KLA-Tencor). He was teaching application and field service engineers to troubleshoot and repair semiconductor manufacturing equipment.
After a year Lopez was promoted to technical training manager. Now he was overseeing other trainers, but his primary work was managing in-house services. “As my career developed through different teams, I learned the technical publications part of the job, and multimedia.”
Tech publications and training
Lopez moved into management in the technical training organization, developing and delivering product training for internal and external customers. “As I continued in my career I branched from technical training into technical publications and operations.”
This was a new and growing segment of the field that encouraged independent learning
with Internet support. “It was a migration from the old manual documentation to online,”
he explains.
And it was a huge transformation. Technical manuals are the first step to informal learning outside the classroom setting. But today, Lopez says, there’s a shift in how people learn, and online learning has become vital.
“When students leave a training environment we depend on their ability to remember what they learned.” But, he warns, jobs are getting more complex and details are harder to remember. As a result, “Companies are striving to implement the sort of informal training that will let them leverage the previous learning of their employees.”
Directing knowledge services
In 2003 Lopez moved up to director of knowledge services. In this post he oversaw the transition to Web-based training: from publications to portals. Today he’s in charge of a staff of more than a hundred, including technical writers and illustrators in Singapore and India.
Working in an international environment, “The phone rings a lot earlier,” he notes wryly. An even greater change is that most of his work can no longer be done from his office.
“It requires traveling abroad. People who used to be just down the hall are now across
the world.”
And distance isn’t the only factor, Lopez adds: “The cultures are different.” He has had to learn how people work in many different parts of the world, how they are motivated and how they collaborate. “The challenge is to continue to be a leader when your team is across the world. You have to motivate and work differently to remain effective when you’re separated by a lot of water.”
Encouraging self-sufficiency
As a senior director Lopez depends on his team, and he encourages its members to be self-sufficient. “They need to be able to take a direction and run with it, understanding how it ties into the overall mission,” he says.
For himself, moving services offshore has been a fascinating challenge. “It’s a huge learning curve,” he admits. “We have to determine where it is appropriate to take knowledge services offshore, what we would be good at abroad and what we would not be good at. There are opportunities that every company can take advantage of.”
Repeated levels of success
When it comes to training and knowledge services, Lopez says, “I would say that KLA-Tencor
is a leader. We are recognized for our repeated success, even when we compete against
the best.”
D/C
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