IT is where it is at in jobs, including in H1B hiring.
An EE who doesn’t want to work in that environment—but resents H1Bs—doesn’t really get much sympathy from me.
Like in many other fields, before one gets to be a gray hair in IT, it is best to develop and demonstrate managerial and executive skills. But again, that’s common in many professional fields. Someone can be old and still in relatively good demand in IT as an individual contributor if he (and yes, it’s usually a he) has kept current in his skills.
The EE is an old guy and he did go the IT route, his most recent gig was teaching at a local college. He was treated quite badly before that, and with the head full of knowledge he has, its good that he’s patriotic and a Tea Partier. A guy like that actually could pull off literal “death from above”.
The industry as a whole needs to get over hating: over-50’s, women, and whites. The government for its part needs to stop incentivising the hiring of foreign workers over Americans.