Fewer Engineers Means Fewer Weapons Designs
By Ed Sperling
Uncle Sam wants you—but not on the battlefield.
The diminished pool of qualified engineering and science graduates is having a major impact on the defense market. There simply are too few trained engineers to design complex systems for the military at the rate they’re needed, creating a huge hole in a system that has been humming along for the better part of a century. And with many existing engineers retiring or retired, the need will only grow.
The problem started in the early 1990s with acquisition reform, which began tackling problems of custom-made tools. Stories about hammers and toilet seats costing hundreds of dollars made headlines across the country, and Congress reacted by moving to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) parts. In the name of efficiency, not to mention the defense cuts of the Clinton administration, the government turned what was once an attractive career option for engineering and science graduates into an extremely unattractive option.
While it has been relatively easy for a company to get on the list of accepted suppliers—they have to meet the triple standards of reliable, safe and secure, with an established production process—the number of engineers who actually work for these companies has been in sharp decline. And so far, they haven’t returned.
“Science, technology and the underlying math and physics has been waning in schools,” said Paul Shebalin, retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral and currently the director of the Wayne E. Meyer Institute of Systems Engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. “That’s especially true for those individuals who are eligible for DoD (Department of Defense) clearance.”
Enrollment at engineering schools dropped precipitously in the beginning of the decade, but it appears to be on the rise. In fact, enrollment of full-time foreign graduate students on temporary visas in science and engineering grew 16 percent in 2006, compared with only 4 percent in 2005, according to the National Science Foundation. Those numbers dropped 19 percent after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Looked at differently, the number of U.S students in those programs is growing, as well. The percentage of U.S. students in science and engineering increased to 71% of the total students enrolled in 2005, up from 69% in 2003. The good news is that it’s far easier for U.S. citizens to get DoD clearance for sensitive defense projects. But what percentage push further into graduate education and then into complex system-level design remains to be seen.
“The typical curriculum is that in undergraduate you have electrical and mechanical engineering and computer science, and then you try to integrate all of that at the end. In graduate school, it’s a systems approach—systems process, engineering economics and process management,” Shebalin said. “What we need are people who can integrate thermal with electronics, structures, weight and propulsion. In the systems engineering process, you have to come up with a system specification that includes functional and non-functional requirements.”
He noted that the Secretary of the Navy already has issued a mandate to boost the numbers of engineers and scientists, as well as the quality of their training. “We’ve seen the problems of systems engineering done badly,” he said.
Tags: business, graduate, Naval Postgraduate School, NPS, outsourcing, project management systems
January 22nd, 2009 at 3:43 pm
I am an electrical engineer and was laid off in 2002-2003. My secret security clearance had lapsed as a result of my going into the commercial world a number of years prior to my lay off. No one who was recruiting for jobs requiring a clearance wanted to talk to me — they only wanted people with current clearances. Has that changed?
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I’m MS EE USA citizen with long hardware CISCO experience.
I’ve lost my senior engineer CISCO job to young H1B visa Indian engineers 4 years ago when two my of kids were attending colledge. I’m devastated financially. I’m unable to support myself not to mention the whole family. I would be very happy to work as a guard or a floor sweeper for defense industry. How I can survive in USA without a job? Engineering degree is a fast track path for perpetual unemployment.
January 24th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Hi Hans. I spent many years working for the DoD. The fact that you qualified for a security clearance in the past should be an asset. But the rules of supply and demand still hold, so if recruiters can find qualifies professionals whose clearance is still active, then cost savings will require that those with clearances are hired first.
Of course, just as with private industry, your value to a defense contractor also lies with your expertize.
Good luck.
February 13th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I’m also MS EE with 20 years expd lost my last full time job in 04. Have been successful consultant for last 4 years but when the last startup stopped I have been unsuccessful finding any employment of late. Things don’t look too good and I feel my time might be better spent going into another career. This country no longer requires engineers as we fall further behind in all aspects of our failed economy. Engineers are always the first to go and then they only hire back H1Bs and students cheap labor!
February 13th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Don’t believe the lies this industry continually publishes about lack of engineers, its patently false premise, the schools in the USA produce more EEs than the industry can possibly use. This is exacerbated by the reality that they want H1Bs and recent grads who will work for the lowest pay scale possible then get layed off after 5-7 years.
February 13th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
From what most companies are saying these days, the pay differentials around the globe are disappearing–in places like India they’re completely gone for some jobs. What may become increasingly evident, though, is that new skill sets are constantly needed and engineers will need to re-tool. This is hardly welcome news to established engineers, and it will be a painful process. We all know engineers who have been laid off, and then we see young engineers get hired who don’t have nearly the depth of knowledge they do. The best option is for companies to require their employees to take classes and expand their scope, particularly in areas like software. So far, that doesn’t seem to be happening though.
February 16th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
In the past couple of years I’ve discovered that several European and Latin American countries have jobs for experienced engineers who are willing to relocate. It may be time for American engineers to find the value in work abroad. You can expand your skills and horizons at the same time.
Scotland, in particular has more than 200,000 skilled positions available and no one to fill them.