Induction: April 2017

Parsons was a long-time participant in the VITA Standards Organization (VSO). He participated in countless working groups over his twenty-plus years of contributions, extending all the way back to the original VMEbus standard. He was the chair of the VITA 30.x (2mm Connector Practice for Eurocard Systems) working group. Parsons was the chairman of the VSO for nine years. During his tenure, VITA adopted new ex ante patent terms for its members, setting a new high-bar for standards development organizations. It was also during his years that VPX became the mainstay activity for the VSO.

In 1996, Parsons joined the VITA board of directors as the representative for AMP who had just become a sponsor member. He was involved in many changes that VITA experienced in those years, as the charter expanded from VMEbus to include other technologies important to the critical embedded computing industry.

Connector technology is the root of many of the standards developed by VITA, Parsons’ background in the connector industry was key to his contributions to the many standards he was involved in during his career. After graduating with an aerospace engineering degree and working in that industry for seven years, Parsons moved to AMP as a product engineer and later as the Harrisburg liaison for AMP Packaging Systems. In 1988, he moved to AMP Standards and Approvals department as a Standards Development Manager where he was a key contributor to dozens of VITA standards. He also participated in PICMG, IEEE, SFF, SCSI, and other standards activities, continuing after the merger with Tyco Electronics and Foxconn until his retirement in 2010.