SubscribePaper 19: Engineers, an endangered species?
Note: In previous posts we looked at how government needs to adapt (see Papers 8, 9 and 10) and how businesses need to do a better job of integrating design thinking into their business planning and operations (see Papers 6 and 7). In this guest post, NC DOT Deputy Secretary for Communication Ted Vaden makes some observations of relevance to both government agencies and businesses based on what he heard at last month’s Emerging Issues Forum on creativity.
By Ted Vaden
Since I came to the NC Department of Transportation a year ago, I’ve been observing engineers.
With a few exceptions, they are the leaders here. Division engineers are the generals of small armies. They answer to the chief engineer, who answers to another engineer, who answers to the chief operating officer, who happens to be both an engineer and a general. The designation, P.E., after your name is an honorific important enough to place on the nameplate on your door. I have P.E. envy.
It makes sense that engineers are so esteemed. They get transportation done.
Transportation is about how to get from Point A to Point B in the fastest time, at the least cost. Engineers are uniquely qualified—by education but also, I would argue, by mindset—to make transportation happen. They think in straight lines, about how to get you from here to there, about how to overcome the obstacles in between (think rock slide). Transportation is about problem-solving; engineers thrive on solving puzzles. Whatever the problem is, they figure it out.
And it’s not just transportation. For the last half-century, engineers have been the drivers of our economy, our society, our culture. The great advances that define the age—the television, the computer, the cell phone, the iPod—came from engineers. Engineers rule.
Or at least, they did.
