The brittle nature of ceramic materials makes it imperative that ceramic based components have little or no residual tensile stress when joined to metals, and low tensile stress during operation. During development of an interrupted transformer switch containing a magnetic ferrite (Zn_xMn_1-xO. Fe₂O₃) ceramic, the low toughness of the ferrite led to failures during soldering the ceramic to copper and during subsequent  mechanical testing. Strength of the ferrite-copper bond was extremely process dependent, and it was difficult to reproducibly obtain high peel strengths. To overcome these issues, a hierarchy of joining techniques were utilized during prototyping. To reduce tensile stress during operation, two half-moon shaped disks of ferrite were joined to a thermally matched glass-ceramic using glass bonding. The residual stress near the interface was evaluated both experimentally and using FEA.  The processing parameters and composition of glass bonded regions were modified to obtain essentially zero stress in the ferrite. Strength testing of bonded sections indicated that failures occurred predominantly in the ferrite, away from the interface, indicating a strong bond. An alternative metal-ceramic joining process, capture of the bonded assembly using a Ni/Ti/Nb shape memory alloy (SMA), was successfully employed. The constitutive behavior of the SMA under stress was obtained and a corresponding material model was used with FEA to predict the stresses in the ferrite. The stresses were experimentally validated. The SMA captured assembly was soldered into a stainless steel body using peel testing to identify the appropriate electroplating process. A robust prototype capable of withstanding mechanical and shock loadings was obtained. This paper summarizes the various schemes developed for the design and manufacture of this component.