| Spotlight on Jobs: Engineer
Interest,
opportunities on rise
Maine Sunday Telegram
February 23, 2003 National Engineering
Week ran through Feb. 22, but the Maine Engineering Promotion Council
is going one better – extending Maine's own E-Week
right through next weekend. You might say that's appropriate, because engineers – and
prospective engineers – in Maine have reason to celebrate.
|
A
day at work with: Bruce Hunt, project manager, Woodard & Curran
"One of the cool things about this job is that I've been
in so many facilities nobody would ever see, unless they worked
there … paper mills, circuit board manufacturers, industrial
laundries, foundries, universities, bottled water plants. But one
way or another, I'm trying to help a client get from point A to
point B, look at the options and at what the facility can take,
and give them a cost effective solution that will allow them to
do what they want to do, for whatever type of business model.
"The days vary, depending on what phase we're into with a
project. One a typical day, I'm using a lot of writing skills.
You have to have decent communications abilities … To some
degree how much you use them depends on where you are in your career.
At entry level you'd be handling a lot more engineering work. Later
you're typically more involved with clients, and editing others'
reports. It's more a management phase, where you're looking after
the big picture rather than focusing on the individual task.
"So, typically, I'll be talking to clients, going out to
a site to check on progress, whether we're on schedule or have
to get back on … and invoicing the client. That's a small
piece of the job, but you caught me doing that this morning. After
that I'll be meeting with a couple of colleagues for a kick off
meeting of a couple of projects – ‘here's where we
are, here's where we need to get to,' and everybody takes off and
starts working." |
Engineers and engineering
technicians are much in demand here, and nationwide. Maine now has 5,540
engineers in various disciplines, according to Bureau
of Labor statistics cited by David Bragdon, communications director of
the Maine Science and Technology Foundation, a state-chartered, nonprofit
corporation based in Portland. But a shortage of students is "of real
concern," Bragdon said.
"Nationally, the number of engineering students peaked in 1986. Since
then, there has been almost a 20 percent decline," Bragdon said.
Fortunately, thanks
in part to energetic campaigning by the University of Maine System, the
state has seen a significant increase in people studying
engineering: up 23 percent at UMaine (70 percent of them in-state students)
and 100 percent in the University of Southern Maine's engineering program
over the last year, Bragdon said. Maine Maritime Academy is "another
prime source of engineering talent focusing on marine as well as power
systems," Bragdon said.
Why the interest? For
one thing, the average starting salary of 2002 UMaine engineering grads
who stayed to work in Maine is $47,000, Bragdon noted –"well
above the state average." And at Woodard & Curran in Portland,
project manager Bruce Hunt makes clear it is a rewarding profession in
many ways.
"Two types of project, especially," Hunt says. "Those
you start, and do design for, and eventually do the startup and see it
work
the way it was supposed to. That's one of the greatest things, when you've
started with a blank page.
"The other, a ton of fun, is going out when a client is having trouble
with a system – for example, a waste system whose discharge isn't
what the client wants it to be. You analyze it, do bench scale testing
for different things, look at where the system is… When you do trials
at full scale, and produce results for stuff that's bugging the client
for ages, it's very rewarding."
In the job market,
Bragdon sees growth. "Cianbro, for example pursuing
the ($100 million) oil rig construction," Bragdon said. "That's
part of the development of a new market and one example of Maine companies
being out there looking for new opportunities."
A highlight of Maine's E-Week comes Friday (Feb. 28) with a banquet starting
at 6 p.m. at Verrillo's in Portland. Saturday, March 1, will see the E-Week
Expo at Gorham High School from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information,
visit www.engineeringme.com/eweek. |
