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Posted on 08/25/2008 7:05:22 AM PDT by BloodOrFreedom
The nation's defense and space industry is facing a potential engineering crisis as retiring baby boomers leave the work force.
Lured by the buzz of a Google or an Apple, many young engineers would rather go into commercial high-tech jobs than tap out computer code for the next rocket system, experts say. Helping cure cancer or solve global warming also has great appeal to the young, creating a surge in biomedical and environmental work.
That could leave defense and space contractors in the lurch after the baby boomers' big exit. About 60 percent of the industry's work force could retire during the next two decades, according to the Aerospace Industries Association.
"That's going to be a huge experience drain," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst for the Lexington Institute of Washington. "And it is tough to attract younger engineers because they know they may have a smoother career in the commercial sector, where demand doesn't rise and fall on the whim of world politics."
"It is critical that we replace these retiring engineers; this is not the kind of work that we can just outsource overseas," said Ken Kelly, chairman of the National Center for Simulation, an Orlando-based defense industry group.
Many baby-boomer engineers have joined the efforts. Dave Franck, an engineer with Lockheed Martin Corp.'s Orlando simulation training operation, co-founded a group that screens future engineers and mentors younger staff members.
Overall, however, the U.S. defense industry is not yet prepared for the historic drop-off in the work force that will come with the baby-boomer retirements, Thompson said.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
The Great American Schools, at it again.
My father, at 81 years old, would love to keep working, and as one of the original NASA “rocket scientists”, he has definitely helped lay the groundwork for the current technology. He recently bailed out the company I work for when he brought some “old school” engineering to bear on a problem and knocked it out in short order after it had been hung up for four years prior to that. When that was done, the company said they had nothing else for him to do. His department head later said to me, “I would think he’d want to start slowing down, anyway.” I replied, “Don’t you think that should be his choice?”
There’s still some good knowledge and mentoring left in the guys who built the industry, and it’s being rejected in favor of younger, cheaper, less threatening kids just out of school.
That kind of work was (in part) pipe-fitting and whatnot, so the problem is not just a lack of young hotshot SW engineers in this field. We also face a shortage of smart technicians who are willing to get their hands dirty.
Raise the salaries, improve the working conditions and guess what? The market will work. Having done the aerospace thing for the first 15 years of my career, I can tell you that the layoffs in this line of work - well they suck. So, caution to young engineers, you better do more than depend on the company. This is no news, but still needs to be said.
Figures.
But that would cut into the paychecks and bonuses of the non-value adds in management and marketing. . .and we can’t have THAT, now can we ?? (sarcasm intended)
My company’s hollow at that level. We were built by World War II vets, who passed some kind of torch to the Boomers. The Gen-Xer’s are ignorant and blissfully so. They don’t want to learn, they already know it all. The Chinese (Hell, Russians) are going to blast past us if we don’t change our attitudes. < alte kaker rant>
A ghastly K through 12 education system and we expect it to produce scientists and engineers.
You want fries with that?
Aparently somebody does...we have to choose, though. Do we want to lock our children in a room with a textbook and a violin, like China, or let them out to explore the world. Honestly, I would prefer the latter; to be more well rounded and physically fit.
College-attending students are on the rise, though it is becoming so common that a degree is almost like having a HS diploma. There are people out there with the ability and knowledge, just not the dedication and discipline to apply it
A few years back, I was involved in with the distribution of the orientation packets for incoming graduate students at a major university in the Southeast. Technical and scientific students made up a rather small minority of total incoming grad students. In fact, the school of social work had more incoming grads than did all of the physical sciences, including engineering and computer science, combined. It was eye-opening.
Bingo. This is a cover story for more work visas from India and China.
Engineers?
Try a job fair in Bangalore, and maybe at Beijing University. Thats probably the best place to hire budding new engineers.
Up until less than five years ago, security clearance paperwork was all just that... stacks of paper (huge rooms full of the stuff). Finally, they’ve gotten with the 20th century and started using computers for record keeping.
Here’s a personal experience about why this brain drain in the defense sector may be happening: About ten years ago I was weighing a job choice between two commercial companies and a defense contractor. The defense contractor wanted me to fill out a bunch of paperwork before we even met for an interview (an SF86 is a daunting thing, even for the initiated), the commercial companies wanted to show me their offices and introduce me to “my new coworkers”.
It was before 9/11 and the money they were offering was slightly higher but comparable to the private sector jobs, but with them I knew exactly what I’d be doing and who I’d be working with. Besides, this was dealing with the government, and equivalent government jobs were paying 2/3rd of private sector jobs at the time so why would getting involved in that business appeal to me?
I weighed the options and took a private sector job, not even bothering with the SF86. Of my friends, only two applied for the job, one who was only in it for the money and another who wanted to find out where the aliens were buried in hanger 18. For the time gap between Glasnost and the twin towers, I have a feeling this story is common.
Since 9/11, it’s probably been easier to recruit, but the collective damage of a ten-year sub-optimal candidate pool to select employees who are now first-line supervisors or contact points at work is a lot to overcome to get back to the ‘glory days’ of the Apollo project or other big important works.
And who fits them out in these shackles? A combination of "conservative/free-market" bankers and loan agents, lobbyists and the lobbied congressmen -- yet the biggest contingent of all are the "marxists", the tenured and pensioned, the professor and the college office staff in academia.
There could be a solution via tech schools and community colleges but these are also fairly rapidly being co-opted by the gilded hallways of big academia.
My solution would be to tie the loans unto the college and move the performance risk back unto the lender-college nexus which is some damnably exploiting of young 18 and 19 year olds able to sign major contracts but with coming our of high school with almost no skills in understanding the long term impact of loan payments nor able to calculate simple interest -- so poor is math these days.
Not at all. The schools aren't the problem, industry is. Used to be a student invested 4 to 6 years or more in training for a career in engineering and then was rewarded with steadily higher compensation as his experience and his skill set grew. Any engineering major today will spend that career competing with lower priced off shore resources and a future where the odds of being dumped at some future time for a cheaper moder are very high. Where's the incentive?
I’m bailing out 1 January 2013.
“My company’s hollow at that level. We were built by World War II vets, who passed some kind of torch to the Boomers. The Gen-Xer’s are ignorant and blissfully so.”
The bulge of boomers basically shut Gen-Xers out of many fields of work, as they essentially filled all the positions for nearly 20 years. By the time people my age were reaching the age where they’d have their engineering degrees, there just wasn’t much need, or want, or more young engineers. I’m not complaining, just stating a demographic fact. There was much more opportunity available for my generation in the new and growing fields of computer hardware and software, so that’s where we went. I don’t know what’s happening with the current generation - maybe they’ll see more opportunity in these fields.
ping
As long as there is an H1-B program, engineering salaries will remain depressed.
Was it an issue of salary? Paying him what he's worth, probably is expensive. Does he need to work? Would people like him be willing to work cheap if they didn't really need the money.
The practical experience and mentoring guys like your father bring to the table should not be so easily dismissed.
“Any engineering major today will spend that career competing with lower priced off shore resources and a future where the odds of being dumped at some future time for a cheaper moder are very high. Where’s the incentive? “
BUMP!
My suggestions are a) get a graduate degree too, like an MBA b) consult on the side if you can c) work hard, but don’t burn yourself out for the company, they care more about the bottom line than you personally (the HP way isn’t what it used to be for an example) d) have a wife who has a skill and can (and will) work e) save some of the buck - the new shiny car won’t do you any good if you get laid off and still have payments. Good luck to him. My 16 year old son is interested aerospace also. Me I told him to get a degree in mechanical engineering first, then specialize.
True.
My impression of today’s kids entering their freshman year is that they don’t have the work ethic or incentive to make the 4 to 6 year death-march through an engineering program, as I did, when they can party for 4 years, get their business degree and make as much, if not more than, an entry level engineering position.
Not all degrees should be eligible for loans. The world doesn’t need any more majors in Wymyns’ Studies or in Soci[alism]ology. There is no payback to those degrees.
Precisely. Bill and Dave did it, and did well. Now days short term profit maximization is the rule. When I worked for Hughes, we were a private company and the engineers and scientists ran the business - and it showed. We invented new technologies and products. Now we fatten the pocket books of the investment bankers.
My raytheon weapons designer freinds are Electrical Engineers. Used to be weapons designers were mechanicals.
The smart ones, and the ones who really want it, can and will. My son, for instance, is going to have two years of college calculus before he enters e-school. Hopefully that will take some of the edge off the 18-19 unit quarters.
By comparison, my alma mater, UCSB has a line of highly qualified students who want into graduate engineering school. They actually turn away guys who are very well qualified - I know several of them from my gun club. They won’t be hurting, they’ll end up going to 2nd tier schools and kicking butt.
Correctamundo.
Takes all kinds, scientists too.
849 Days left and I retire! I got the short timer’s clock.
I’ll believe there’s a shortage of engineers when I start seeing job ads that don’t read like “must have 18+ years experience in cold-state aluminum extrusion and composite formulation in the office furniture industry and must demonstrate fluency in Icelandic.”
This is the text of a response letter to the reporter from my wife. She asked me to post it, so here you goes:
I have to weigh in on your engineering graduate article.
Over the course of my 30 year career in electronics engineering, I have been an engineer at INTEL, have taught in the engineering college at two major universities, and have also taught years ago in the high school and at the community college level.
This comment is not directed toward the author, but toward the bureaucrats in general about how they view this dilemma.
They think the problem has to do with poor teaching in grade school, or high school. They think that it has to do with a lack of mentors, a lack of role models, or because it is more popular to be green than it is to launch missiles.
When will they stop ignoring the big white elephant in the corner? I want to shout at the top of my lungs: IT’S ABOUT THE MONEY, STUPID!!!
Anyone who can stay up around the clock and pull all nighters studying for one of the most rigorous and challenging courses of study to earn a bachelor’s, or master’s or PhD in engineering, can easily become a doctor, a pharmacist, an MBA in finance, or a lawyer.
Because they are good in problem solving, are top-of-the-line in the work ethic arena, they have the ability to pursue careers that will guarantee them a comfortable life raising a family.
The engineering profession in this country once enjoyed a high status and relatively high pay, but that has changed drastically since the influx or virtual invasion of the H1B visa. Its consequences to the recruitment of American students into engineering are not well understood nor researched.
However, based on anecdotal evidence from my vantage-point, which includes first-hand knowledge of many MIT PhD engineering grads who are being recruited and groomed by other fields for their pedigree and work ethic, I can tell you, our field is dying in the U.S.
The immigrant or off-shore engineer who is making a “pennies on the dollar salary” doing grueling work in a cube, is happy to be sitting in a chair in an air-conditioned office, and not pushing a cart in the streets.
Some say that we must not be protectionist, that global supply and demand is the only way to operate. However, protectionism exists for many types of high-paying jobs such as doctors, airline pilots, and other professions with built-in filters.
Other countries do employ forms of protectionism, yet we refuse to do so in the smallest way for engineers.
I say, view these Department of Defense engineers as the valuable commodity that they are, not unlike soldiers, and pay them accordingly. If the engineering profession still has a viable means of providing a living commensurate with the 80 hour work weeks they can demand, the people who are attracted to the problem solving engineering profession will step up and solve our problem!
Otherwise, we must wait until we become the cheap labor on the planet, gratefully snapping up opportunities to work for way less than foreign talent as the pendulum swings and we become the lowest bidders for the jobs. When the job once again approaches high pay and status relative to other fields here at home, you will see an upswing in the recruitment and retention of American engineers.
Agreed...there will always be those types of kids, but when I look at the freshman entering class numbers to the college of engineering at my alma mater and other similar state school programs, it is close to a third of my freshman class 20 years ago...very sad.
Best of luck to your son...and tell him to hurry, I want to retire someday! ;~)
This not the case in all parts of Engineering. I design buildings for a living. The face to face communication required with owners, architects, code officials, etc. can't be replaced by a conference call.
We synthesize chemical intermediates and active pharma ingredients in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. We have no problem recruiting Ohio State Chem Engineers. We intern them during semester breaks and in effect interview the candidate for a number of years.
Align with a state school. Ohio State is chuck full of very bright sons and daughters of Procter & Gamble, GE, 5/3 Bank, etc.
Bright kids from bright parents who must live within a budget and choose a state school.
The good candidates work for a few years and we subsidize their advanced education. A good ChemE with an MBA is a great asset.
Hire bright, self-motivated people who have a sense of commercialization and tend to get along with other people. Invest in people and give them enough responsibility and you'll have a solid, long-term employee base. Get every discipline involved, when appropriate with the commercial aspect of the firm. Have the analytical, quality and process engineering meet with visitors when appropriate and let them participate in the commercialization.
Have a demonstration when the business unit manager visits. When the BUM asks a business question, have the appropriate section personnel answer the question and prove to management your team has moxie and commercialization skills.
The boat has to be traveling in one direction and every component of that ship has to appreciate that fact. Above all else, don't throw hand grenades in the boat. The consequence effects everyone. Use your weapons responsibly.
If I was desperate enough, I'd land that job and I only know one word of Icelandic: Nokia. Which is course a Finnish concern.
Bingo. Middle-aged caucasian men need not apply, no matter how much experience he may have.
Not all the members of your development team need to have face to face contact with the customer, do they? Well you will find, as IT has found, that it's the engineers and other resources in those areas that are in most danger of having their work outsourced.
Whenever women like to brag about how more women are going to college than men, I like to tell them that it is to become social engineers rather than mechanical engineers.
So the shorter, and cheaper, route is not through engineering.
I would think that getting a security clearance would be something that would ideally be done while in college.
If the govt is serious about getting enough engineers to work on defense work, then it should allow college seniors to apply THEMSELVES for a clearance, charge a nominal fee (say $500) to weed out people who are not serious about doing defense work, and just do it.
Excellent point!
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