Vivienne Harwood Mattox and Don Mattox are co-founders of Management Plus, Inc.
MPI was incorporated in 1985 in Albuquerque, NM when Vivienne Mattox was asked to develop and manage a Short Course Program for the Materials Research Society (MRS). She was well known for having developed an enormously successful short course program for the American Vacuum Society (AVS) as a volunteer. Her goals were to therefore develop new course topics for MRS using materials experts and MRS members as instructors.

In 1988 Vivienne was at the 31st Annual Technical Conference of the Society of Vacuum Coaters (SVC) supervising the presentation of several MRS courses at that conference when she was approached about providing association management services for SVC. In the fall of 1988 MPI signed the first of many contracts with SVC to provide full association management services, including the development of an expanded short course program. In 2002 Professor Ismat Shah developed for SVC a unique and successful Long Distance Learning Tutorial in collaboration with the University of Delaware. Ismat later became the Education Committee Chair. Ismat, Vivienne, Don, and David Glocker developed courses that were presented at industrial sites and webinars. The final MPI management contract with SVC expired in July 2016. 

Some more background – in 1993 MPI was approached by the Association of Vacuum Equipment Manufacturers (AVEM) to manage their organization. MPI was told that AVEM member companies had been impressed by the growth of SVC – since many of them were exhibitors at the SVC annual conference. During the 14 year span that MPI managed AVEM, the number of equipment manufacturers who were members of AVEM and the quality of the reported sales statistics grew significantly.

Don Mattox provided consulting services on vacuum coating technology after his retirement from Sandia National Laboratories in 1989. As the Technical Director for SVC he responded to a wide range of questions from members and non-members, and wrote over 100 stand-alone two-page Education Guides to Vacuum Coating Processing. These spiral bound guides address specific topics and are indispensible for teaching novice technicians and production level operators – since providing these individuals with a textbook might be overwhelming to them. Don’s personal background, awards and publications can be found in the Don Mattox section of this website.

Similar details regarding Vivienne’s background, awards and publications can be found in the Custom Programs section of this website. Please contact Vivienne at vivienne.mattox@mpinm.com if you have questions regarding the On-Site Education Programs.