ROUNDTABLE ENGINEERING PROFESSION
they have people serving on committees, it helps them to stay in touch with wider developments. Perhaps the institutions also need to recognise it as a form of sponsorship and give more publicity to the companies, which permit their staff to engage in the committee work.’ This raised the question of how primarily
technical and engineering-led bodies handle ‘softer’ skills and business issues. ‘Professional institutions tend to focus
on technical activities, but in the current climate it is the business and professional skills we should be focusing on,’ said David Warriner, chairman of IMechE’s construction and building services division. ‘We need to make a better job of
CIBSE president Andy Ford, left, and Andy Pearson of the Institute of Refrigeration
engineers. But older engineers should offer themselves as mentors. However, all agreed that it was still difficult to get young engineers to engage in this kind of work because of pressure from their employers to focus on their short-term business goals. ‘In difficult economic circumstances,
employer support for participation in volunteer activities declines,’ said ASHRAE executive vice-president Jeff Littleton. ‘Also, young members focused on balancing careers and personal life do not feel the same obligation to contribute to the greater good as older members who are looking to give something back after years in the industry; they need to see some advantage to them or their company – if you don’t give them that you lose them. And once they are gone, it is hard to get them back.’
ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS
Andy Ford is president of CIBSE
Ron Jarnagin is president of ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air- conditioning Engineers)
Jeff Littleton is executive vice- president of ASHRAE
Stephen Matthrews is chief executive of CIBSE
Andy Pearson is president of the Institute of Refrigeration
Richard Rooley is former president of ASHRAE
David Warriner is chairman of IMechE’s construction and building services division
Time for mentors Stephen Matthews, chief executive of CIBSE, went further: ‘That culture is dead; young people will not sit around a table and discuss things that they don’t see as important. We need to focus on our tone and allow people to participate in an organisation in a way they feel comfortable with. It doesn’t suit them to use the old, grey man model of life – we just need to give them some encouragement and confidence and they will fly.’ Employers need to buy into the process,
and Pearson advised them to see economic benefit in ‘lending’ their young minds to the broader work of the industry. ‘They should treat it as a form of sponsorship,’ he said. ‘They should also realise it can be very good value for money for businesses because, if
26 CIBSE Journal November 2011
professional development. It is depressing that there is an image that engineers emerge from college fully formed – I look back in horror about how little I knew. That is where we can make a difference by helping newer engineers develop and learn from our experience.’ ‘Our role as industry bodies is to take the
advocacy role and focus on professional development,’ said Warriner. He pointed out that the coming
generation was facing far more challenging times than the baby boomer generation experienced – with sustainability as the key issue.
‘They will have to fix the technical
problems, but their businesses will have to be sustainable too. They will have to deal with ethics, social factors – softer subjects that we often ignore.’ At the same time, the panel agreed that businesses would have to become less risk averse and allow young engineers to experiment and make mistakes. ‘Innovation requires mistakes; error is
part of what happens and is how you get progress,’ said Ford. ‘The companies need to allow young engineers to develop in a relatively benign environment so they feel able to experiment and make mistakes.’ He also said this needed to be explained
to politicians, most of whom had no idea how engineering solutions were delivered. ‘Our institutions can take on that role and show how things actually happen and how we get the progress the politicians expect of us.’ So, professional bodies – on both sides of
the Atlantic – are wrestling with a similar problem. All of the panellists agreed that there was no more urgent task facing the current leadership generation than reaching out to their successors.
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