NSPE Blog

PE Warned of Space Shuttle Disaster

Roger Boisjoly, the engineer who warned of a possible O-ring failure that could lead to the destruction of the space shuttle Challenger, died on January 6 in Utah, according to the New York Times.

Nearly a decade after the disaster, Boisjoly shared his story with NSPE. Below is the complete article from the August 1995 issue of Engineering Times.

PE Perseveres, 10 Years After Challenger Explosion

By Molly Galvin
Associate Editor

As filmgoers pack Apollo 13 and marvel at the story about a disaster that almost was, Roger Boisjoly tells the story of the disaster that NASA failed to avoid. For 10 years, the professional engineer has been living with the aftermath of the Challenger space shuttle explosion and the events that ended his aerospace career. He has managed not only to find the lessons in that loss but also to carve new opportunities from it.

As a lead engineer for Morton Thiokol, a NASA contractor that helped develop the Challenger’s solid rocket booster, Boisjoly in effect predicted the disaster before it occurred. He correctly noted that the critical O-ring seals in the booster could fail in the low temperatures expected on Challenger’s launch day. But company management repeatedly ignored Boisjoly’s and other engineers’ warnings.

His story of managers putting profit over safety and, ultimately, human life, is as chilling today as it was 10 years ago. The day before the launch, a teleconference was held with NASA officials and Morton Thiokol management. After NASA officials expressed disappointment with Thiokol engineers’ recommendation to cancel the launch, the company’s senior managers overruled that decision. “Take off your engineer’s hat and put on your manager’s hat,” a Thiokol senior manager told the vice president of engineering.

The next day, the world watched the disastrous consequences. “I had made up my mind not to watch the launch,” says Boisjoly, but ended up watching at a colleague’s urging. At first, it looked like the launch might make it. “I whispered to him that we had just dodged a bullet,” he says. “Sixty seconds into the flight [my colleague] whispered back that he had completed a prayer of thanks. Thirteen seconds later, we all saw the horror of destruction as the vehicle exploded.”

Boisjoly’s life would never be the same. A few days later, he was assigned to a failure investigation team with several other engineers. “What I saw there made me sick all over again, because NASA was definitely engaged in a massive cover-up attempt.” Officials were trying to hide the fact that the 31 degree F temperature at launch had any effect on the explosion, he says. And he learned some other disturbing news. “NASA’s initial quick [statement] that [the astronauts] died instantly was simply not true,” Boisjoly says. “The astronauts...were alive when they hit the water in excess of 200 miles an hour.”

For Boisjoly, the nightmare only grew worse as a presidential commission investigated the circumstances surrounding the explosion. “I submitted quite a few documents that clearly showed this was a preventable event. It was a disaster waiting to happen, caused by people who simply wouldn’t listen.” The investigation went from strictly an examination of technical aspects to a grilling of managerial decisions. “[Thiokol managers] were extremely angry when I turned in my documentation and that anger increased as I continued to testify,” says Boisjoly. During testimony at a committee hearing, he publicly refuted a manager’s assertion that Thiokol engineers weren’t unanimous in recommending that the launch be canceled. “When I finished they were so damn mad that I think if they had guns they would have shot me on the spot,” he says.

While his career at Morton Thiokol seemed to be over, he stuck it out for about six months. “I was in a world of hurt. I was blaming myself for not having done more,” he says. Meanwhile, managers isolated him in his position and “made life a living hell on a day-to-day basis.” Eventually he took sick leave because he was experiencing double vision, mood swings, and lots of anger—all of the signs leading up to a stroke or heart attack.

He told Thiokol he wasn’t returning. Boisjoly had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and learned that he qualified for two years of long-term disability. “I filed several lawsuits against Thiokol, which turned out to be an exercise in total futility,” he says. “I think [the court system was] afraid of what they’d find.” The suits never even made it to the discovery process, he says. Boisjoly decided not to pursue the lawsuits further. “I tried to get on with my life,” he says.

He threw himself into studying for his engineering licensure exam. The long hours he spent studying were a catharsis for healing, he says. In the meantime, he was asked to speak about his experience some 60 times, which he said also helped the healing process. His goal was to do consulting work. “I took the licensure exams because I was absolutely sure that an industry blackball would be instituted against me, especially because of my public brand as a whistle-blower. I was right.”

After he earned his PE license, he started getting more speaking engagements and landed a couple of consulting jobs. “I still didn’t have a great deal of jobs, but I got enough to give me a taste of forensic engineering work.” He was invited to join the NSPE-affiliated National Academy of Forensic Engineers. “I liked to do [forensic work] because the adversarial setting in the courtroom is really not that much different from what I experienced in the 27 years I spent in the aerospace industry.”

Although Boisjoly sometimes misses the excitement of work in the aerospace industry, he says he loves his new career, a combination of forensic engineering work, consulting, and speaking about engineering ethics. He makes his home in Utah, where he was named the 1994 Engineer of the Year by the Utah Society of Professional Engineers and the Utah Engineers Council.

Speaking publicly about the disaster was difficult at first, but he finds it fulfilling now. “It’s changed a lot of lives. It’s a wonderful high to know that you’re making a difference.” Despite the tragedy, Boisjoly has learned to value the lessons Challenger taught. “We [engineers] did all the right things. We informed our customers. The only thing that went wrong is that we had a customer that was hell-bent on launching regardless of the facts,” he says.

He makes it a point to urge all engineers to get licensed, if only for their own protection. Even industry engineers must protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public, he points out. “In industry, the public are the customers. Now picture the scenario of me having a PE license when this happened, and me taking the code of ethics and shoving it up their noses and saying `Look! This is what the code says, this is what I’m obligated to do.’ That’s a powerful threat, especially if my colleagues also have PE licenses.”

Sometimes, after they hear all the hardships he endured on the way, students in Boisjoly’s audiences will ask why he went public with what he knew. “Because I like to sleep peacefully at night,” he answers. “My conscience would have eaten me alive if I had not stepped up and fought for stopping that launch.” He urges all engineers to act responsibly no matter what the consequences. “I believe in the philosophy that you need to tell people what they need to know, not what they want to hear. [Engineers] have got to stand up and fight for what they know is right.”

PEs Not Mentioned in Deepwater Report

The National Academy of Engineering’s final report on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster from April 2010 does not specifically list oversight from professional engineers as a potential safeguard for future rig operations.

It does, however, call for independent oversight from qualified parties on many aspects of rig safety, equipment, and operations. The offshore drilling industry should also establish an effective safety culture to prevent future potential disasters.

Paul Bommer, P.E., a member of the Academy’s panel, said that, because each state licenses engineers and the qualifications and privileges for PEs vary from state to state, it would be difficult to endorse PE oversight generally for what is a federally regulated endeavor.

Donald Winter, chairman of the committee and former Secretary of the Navy, said the panel endorsed oversight similar to that in the United Kingdom, where independent well examiners oversee certain aspects of offshore drilling. Those overseers are sometimes chartered engineers, though the title is not required. The panel favored endorsing independent oversight rather than limiting oversight to a specific group.

You can access the report and other documents related to the investigation on the NAE’s Web site.

A Gift for the Engineering Profession

The holidays are a time of reflection and thoughts of how we all can help our fellow human beings.

The most important professions include not only those who excel at the technical aspects of their craft, but who also measure their impact on society. We were reminded of that when we spoke with the heads of four engineering societies in November. When asked what gift they would give to engineering this holiday season, their wishes may as well have been identical: Share your engineering expertise outside the lab or construction site to make our world a better, safer place.

Listen to Carl Mack, executive director of the National Society of Black Engineers; Victoria Rockwell, president, American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Ron Jarnagin, president, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers; and Chris Stone, P.E., F.NSPE, president of NSPE tell you their holiday wishes in their own words with this PE Podcast. You can also read their responses in “Variables” on p. 40 of the December 2011 issue of PE.

Happy Holidays!

NSPE Working for You: Withholding Tax Repeal

The House last night passed the Senate-amended version of H.R. 674 by a vote of 422 to 0, ending a protracted battle to repeal an onerous tax-withholding mandate that would place significant financial and administrative burdens on engineering firms that contract with the government. The bill now heads to the president's desk, where he is expected to sign it into law. (Note: H.R. 674 was later signed into law by President Obama on 11/21/11.)

H.R. 674 would repeal Section 511 of the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 (PL 109-222), which requires federal, state, and certain local governments to withhold as tax 3% of all payments made to government contractors. The withholding mandate was intended to prevent tax cheating by government contractors but would have punished honest, tax-paying citizens as well as those delinquent in their taxes. If not repealed, the mandate would have taken effect on January 1, 2013.

The requirement would have been especially hard on engineering firms, whose profit margin on government contracts is often less than 3%. Firms would eventually have been able to recoup their expenses, but not until the end of the tax year, causing cash flow problems and costing professional engineers the vital funds they need to conduct business.

Since the tax law’s passage in 2006, NSPE has been working with the Government Withholding Relief Coalition and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to repeal the withholding mandate. The GWRC and NSPE sent five letters to Congress over the month alone urging H.R. 674’s passage. NSPE also sent a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI-4) in support of the repeal.

In addition to NSPE’s advocacy of H.R. 674, NSPE members responded to an NSPE Legislative Action Center alert asking them to contact their senators in support of the bill. Your grassroots efforts helped build a critical mass of opinion that ensured the bill passed the Senate, ultimately enabling its success.

NSPE is grateful to Reps. Wally Herger (R-CA-2) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR-3) and Sens. Scott Brown (R-MA) and David Vitter (R-LA) for spearheading the legislative effort; Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI-4) and Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI-12) for their leadership in the Ways and Means Committee; Speaker John Boehner (R-OH-8), Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA-7), and Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-22) for putting the withholding repeal on the House’s agenda; and Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for advocating repeal in the Senate.

This legislative victory demonstrates that together, professional engineers can make a difference.

Never Too Early to Learn Engineering

On September 26, Sesame Street launched its 42nd season with a new focus: science, technology, engineering, and math. The show will teach preschoolers about STEM to help prepare them for school in areas where the U.S. is falling behind other countries.

Throughout the season, the show’s loveable characters will use scientific inquiry on challenging problems—from experiments on “what worms like to squirm on best” to engineering a boat for Zoe’s pet rock—to get kids thinking like engineers and scientists.

While once students were lucky if they got any exposure to engineering before they hit college, this push to show younger and younger kids the excitement of engineering and technology reflects a growing national trend.

PE magazine examines this overall effort as well as one specific program in the October cover story, “Learning Liftoff.” The article tells about an extraordinary after-school program at Cora Kelly STEM School in Alexandria, Virginia, which complements the elementary school’s daytime science, technology, engineering, and math curriculum with fun hands-on activities for students, such as building bottle rockets and solar boats.

There are also some great multimedia resources to complement the article: an extra photo slideshow, videos, and a podcast.

Watch an ABC News segment about Sesame Street's venture into science, technology, engineering, and math.

I Love L.A.?

By Benjamin Roode
Staff Writer

My dad you used joke that, when he grew up, he wanted to be a cowboy.

It was a joke because he’d tell young children this while he was performing his duties as chief of police in our home town. To the kids, dad was the obvious grown up in the room.

It’s not so much of a stretch, though. Dad grew up in the 1960s, when cowboys, astronauts, and any other of the traditional dream jobs were featured heavily on television.

Note: There were not, and are not now, many engineers in those career outlook-shaping shows.

Some groups, however, are trying to change that. The Science and Entertainment Exchange, affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences, is trying to get more accurate science and engineering information and portrayals in popular culture.

But is that the best way to improve recruitment and retention for engineering? There are possibilities for blowback, some communications experts say.

We look at it all in this month’s PE magazine cover story: Screen Play. We also want you to weigh in. Send an e-mail with your thoughts to pemagazine@nspe.org.

A Real Engineering High

Engineering students at the University of Maryland may not walk away with the Sikorsky Prize, but they’re still excited about their accomplishment Thursday.

Their two-year project, Gamera, a human-powered helicopter, appears to have lifted pilot Judy Wexler several inches into the air, the first time a woman has piloted a human-powered helicopter, according to university officials. Officials from the National Aeronautical Association were reviewing video of the attempt as of this blog post to confirm whether she indeed lifted off.

Despite the milestone Thursday, the motivation for the project is the Sikorsky Prize, which awards $250,000 to the person or team who can use a human-powered copter to hover a human pilot three meters in the air for one minute. While that goal is still far off for the team and their machine, Maryland students and faculty alike are excited about their recent achievement.

“Today’s flight of Gamera is a fitting symbol of our excellence in rotorcraft research and education, and our first step toward winning the Sikorsky Prize,” said Darryll Pines, dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering at Maryland on Thursday.

PE magazine spoke with Brandon Bush, the head graduate student with the project and Pines about the role such projects play in engineering education. Click here to hear it.

Never Too Late to Earn the PE

An article in the April issue of PE magazine told the story of NSPE member Mark Johnson, P.E., who proved that there’s not one standard path to earning the PE license. Johnson first took the FE exam in 1987, five years after he graduated, and last December, at age 50, he passed the PE exam.

After the article was published, PE magazine received the following letter:

Dear Editor,

I just wanted to let you know what a good job I think you did on the Mark Johnson article about how some people just don't get around to being licensed until later in life. I too took the "nontraditional" licensing path and wanted to relate my story to reinforce that it is never too late to advance within your profession.

I originally graduated with an MS in geology from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1981 after doing thesis research in ground water transport and contamination. After working in the petroleum industry for 2 years, and for a state regulatory agency for 6, I decided to enter the consulting business about the time that underground storage tank remediation became big business in the late 1980's. Up until that time I had no thoughts of ever being licensed as a P.E. and was content with my profession as a ground water geologist. However, when I began working for my current firm, who are consulting engineers and where I have now been for nearly 22 years, I began to see that many of my advancement opportunities would eventually be limited.

I first applied for approval to take the Fundamentals of Engineering exam through the "non-ABET accredited institution" provisions under Illinois' licensing regulations. Although I was approved, I took the FE twice and did not pass. However, in 1998 I learned of a distance learning program being offered by my alma mater, SIU-C for a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering. Although not an ABET-accredited curriculum, I thought it would "as good as" being licensed and would at least give me an educational background on par with my peers. For three years while working full time as an engineering project manager I was also enrolled as a full-time graduate student. I eventually graduated in May 2001 at the age of 45 with my second MS from SIU-C. Newly armed with fresh educational experience, I once again applied again to take the FE under the "non-ABET accredited program" provisions of Illinois' licensing regulations feeling that I now possessed the necessary technical background to be successful.

Just in case I was feeling overly confident, the State Of Illinois decided to put one more hurdle in my path, if for no other reason, than to simply test my resolve. I was informed that I needed four more hours of higher level math before I would be approved to sit for the FE. This class proved more difficult to find than my MS classes, because a class like this is usually offered only during the day when I would normally be at work. As fortune would have it, my local community college decided to offer a night class in differential equations during the summer session. In the summer of 2003, I attended class two hours a night, four nights a week, which thankfully only lasted for 8 weeks. My 25th wedding anniversary was spent studying for a DE test that would be the next night. After passing the class I was told I would be allowed to sit for the FE exam in the spring of 2004. This time I took full advantage of on-line study resources and was more disciplined in my study habits after being relatively fresh off of my most recent college classes. I was informed that I passed the FE in June, 2004. I gave myself a one month break and started studying for the PE which I took in October 2004. I learned that I had finally passed my PE in December 2004 at the age of 48. I estimate that I spent in the neighborhood of 600 - 700 hours preparing just for the FE and PE exams in 2004, which does not include hundreds more hours of study earlier in the decade while in graduate school. Perseverance and organization were key to passing these milestone in middle age at a time when I was older than even many of the proctors of the exams.

I am deeply indebted to the engineering faculty at SIU-C, and in particular to Dr. John Nicklow for making these additional opportunities available to me and my fellow "non-traditional" classmates. I am now an associate and group manager and supervise 13 professional and technical staff including several PE's. I am obviously an advocate for professional licensing and continuing education and believe I can serve as an example to my co-workers that one is never too old to accomplish life's goals, both professional and personal. Thank you to NSPE for all your services and for the support you provide to your members.

Allen O. Oertel, P.G.,P.E.
Springfield, Illinois

Fracing, PEs, and Advocacy

What’s the difference between science-based advocacy and advocacy-based science? And what does it mean for professional engineers?

In the April issue of PE magazine, Anthony Ingraffea, P.E., addresses these questions as they relate to the timely topic of hydraulic fracturing, or fracing.

Ingraffea, who is the Dwight C. Baum Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University with a background in rock fracture mechanics and hydraulic fracturing, says there is a crucial ethical distinction between science-based advocacy and advocacy-based science.

“In the former, an engineer advocates publicly for or against an engineering project based on peer-reviewed science that has quantified the risks to human health, Ingraffea writes. “In the latter, an engineer, perhaps swayed by outside interests or by ideology, advocates for a position based on non-peer-reviewed and biased reports, or on an unbalanced assessment of the pros and cons.”

Ingraffea advises: “Remember, when communicating today with responsible legislators or administrators on such a large-scale economic, environmental, and human health issue, one is advocating not just for the present stakeholders but for generations to come.”

Burdensome Regulations and Infrastructure

Without strong infrastructure systems, our national economic position, including our workforce, production, health, safety, and overall welfare is at risk. Professional engineers play a key role in the planning, design, implementation, construction, operation, and maintenance of this infrastructure. So when the Department of Transportation requested public input on the efficacy of its regulations, NSPE sprang into action. (DOT was responding to President Obama’s January Executive Order, “Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review,” under which every federal agency must review its existing regulations to determine whether regulations are effectively promoting economic growth, job creation, and competitiveness without being unduly burdensome.)

NSPE surveyed 10,000 members to pinpoint the regulations of greatest concern to the engineering profession, then filed comments with DOT on a range of topics including the Federal Highway Administration’s and Federal Transit Administration’s inconsistent application of qualifications-based selection, the environmental clearance process, FHWA’s conflict of interest policy, inconsistent models of quality assurance across DOT, and outdated pipeline safety standards. NSPE then spoke at a DOT meeting helmed by DOT General Counsel Robert Rivkin and attended by a panel of the DOT components’ general counsels and senior staff.

NSPE member Dan Tanksley, P.E., F.NSPE, a Texas-based civil engineer who serves as the general counsel of Halff Associates, represented NSPE at the meeting, where he highlighted two critical issues:

• FHWA and FTA only use QBS for construction-related contracts. The Brooks Act requires federal agencies to use QBS when procuring architectural and engineering services; however, FHWA and FTA guidance documents state that QBS is necessary only if engineering services directly relate to construction. This is based on an incomplete reading of the Brooks Act and the mistaken assumption that all engineering services involving real property must be directly related to construction. NSPE recommended that FHWA and FTA amend their guidelines to comply fully with the Brooks Act.
• The environmental clearance process is excessively long. The National Environmental Policy Act requires DOT to evaluate the potential impact of its proposed projects on the environment before any work on projects may begin. Obtaining the necessary environmental clearances, however, takes from six months for a categorical exclusion to a minimum of two years for an environmental assessment and even longer for an environmental impact statement. NSPE believes that the environmental clearance process could be streamlined without compromising the intent of NEPA – a popular view at the meeting, where APWA, AASHTO, ARTBA, the Orange County (CA) Transportation Authority, and the Midwest Bus Corporation also cited the environmental clearance process as a major issue.

NSPE recommended streamlining the environmental clearance process by transferring environmental review responsibilities entirely to the state DOT unless an environmental impact statement is required; replacing sequential reviews with a single joint review or charrette; emphasizing substantive environmental issues rather than issues that have no bearing on decision-making; eliminating the requirement for indirect and cumulative impacts analyses in all categorical exclusion documents; and accepting electronic submissions of documents.

NSPE believes that resolving these and the issues addressed in the written comments will improve the nation’s transportation system, benefiting the public's health, safety, and welfare.

Read NSPE’s position statement on infrastructure.

Podcast: Federal Engineer Earns Top Honors

On February 24, NSPE announced that Vincent Sobash, P.E., an emergency management program specialist for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command, was named the recipient of the 2011 Federal Engineer of the Year Award.

Listen to this audio podcast report from PE magazine on the ceremony and this year’s winner.

Video from the ceremony and interviews will be ready later this week on NSPE’s YouTube page.

The Next Federal Engineer of the Year

When Dr. Lisa Fotherby, P.E., won NSPE’s 2010 Federal Engineer of the Year Award, she was beside herself. She, out of the more than 96,000 engineers employed by the federal government according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was being recognized for her work

“You have this feeling that there are so many other good people around you, but you’re astonished that you get to be recognized,” she says.

Another engineer will soon feel that recognition. NSPE will name its 32nd Federal Engineer of the Year on February 24. This year’s finalists come from three branches of the military, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Department of Agriculture.

Fotherby says the award was more than a welcomed acknowledgement of her commitment to engineering principles: It brought attention to her work at the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation finding environmentally-oriented solutions for river restoration. This year’s FEYA should look forward to similar attention, she says.

The 2011 nominees are:

Gordon S. Bjorkman, Jr., Ph.D.,P.E.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards—Bjorkman, a senior level advisor for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has spearheaded a number of industry-wide accomplishments over the past three years in support of the safe storage and transportation of spent nuclear fuel.

MAJ Scott M. Breece, P.E.
U.S. Air Force
Headquarters U.S. Air Forces in Europe (HQ USAFE)—Breece, chief of readiness operations for the Air Force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, recently acted as lead programs engineer for Special Operations Command Central, the base for Special Operations Forces, which involved overseeing the design and construction of new facilities for command’s headquarters.

Angela L. DeSoto-Duncan, P.E.
U.S. Department of the Army
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—DeSoto-Duncan is chief of technical support for the Hurricane Protection Office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She is working as design lead for the $1.3 billion Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Surge Barrier, the largest design-build civil works project in the history of the Corps of Engineers and the largest surge barrier of its kind.

CDR G. Scott Gesele, P.E.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Coast Guard—Gesele, chief of facilities engineering at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, is responsible for overseeing the maintenance of the structures on the 103-acre campus. He provided strategic guidance to the academy’s many previously uncoordinated sustainability initiatives, focusing their efforts, which included increasing the amount of waste recycled and installing two “cool” roofs, among other projects.

Daryl Hammond, Ph.D., P.E.
U.S. Air Force
Headquarters Air Force Civil Engineer Support Agency—Hammond spearheaded a $1.2 million design-build project at the MacDill Air Force Base in Florida; resolved electrical problems in the power plant at the Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska; led a project to install and evaluate state-of-the-art surge protection and harmonic filtering devices; and developed new curriculum and lesson plans for an electrical power systems course at the Air Force Institute of Technology.

LTC Robert F. Hynes, Ph.D., P.E.
U.S. Department of the Army
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—Hynes, deputy commander of the Far East District for the Army Corps of Engineers, has been involved in management of U.S. and humanitarian interests globally. As the chief of the Mosul office in Iraq from 2008–09, Hynes managed a team of over 100 employees dedicated to the reconstruction of the country.

Randal L. Petty, P.E.
Tennessee Valley Authority—Petty, a senior project manager for the Tennessee Valley Authority, has twenty years of civil engineering experience providing innovative solutions in the water resource, electric generation and transmission, and waste environments. Petty recently directed efforts to engineer and construct a major transmission infrastructure project comprising a new substation, an expansion of an existing substation, and construction of over 60 miles of transmission lines.

Vincent P. Sobash, P.E.
U.S. Department of the Navy
Naval Facilities Engineering Command—Sobash, emergency management program specialist for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command within the U.S. Navy, is an expert in contingency engineering and disaster response, and he ensures disaster readiness for a 3,500-person organization both at home and in support of worldwide relief efforts. He deployed with the Joint Task Force following the Haiti earthquake and worked in many ways to aid the country.

CDR Machelle Vieux, P.E.
U.S. Department of the Navy
Naval Facilities Engineering Command—Vieux, a public works officer for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command within the U.S. Navy, serves as base engineer for a $2.2 billion air facility. This facility has water, industrial, and sewer treatment plants, as well as electrical grids and substations, all of which support a base population of 12,000 personnel living on the west coast homeport.

Jerry D. Walker, P.E.
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Natural Resources Conservation Service—Walker, an agriculture engineer for the Natural Resources Conservation Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, provides leadership on the issues of water quality, irrigation, and drainage. Walker has conducted or coordinated training of over 400 federal and nonfederal engineers and technicians over the last three years, in a wide range of water management or irrigation topics, including system planning, design, management, evaluation and operation, and troubleshooting, thereby significantly improving agency capacity.

NSPE will name it’s finalist at an awards luncheon 12:30 p.m. February 24 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Invited guests include all nominees and their agency heads or commanders; leaders from engineering associations; members of Congress and their staff; members of the judging panel; and local media and journalists. Tickets are $60 per person. For more information about the FEYA program or to order tickets, contact Erin Reyes at egarcia@nspe.org, or visit the FEYA Web page.

STEM & the State of the Union

During President Barack Obama’s recent State of the Union address, engineers might have been encouraged by some of the important words coming from the president’s mouth.

“The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations’.”

“And over the next ten years, with so many Baby Boomers retiring from our classrooms, we want to prepare 100,000 new teachers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.”

“We need to teach our kids that it’s not just the winner of the Super Bowl who deserves to be celebrated, but the winner of the science fair.”

Sound familiar? STEM has become an enormously popular issue, and STEM education is one of NSPE’s top-five government relations priorities (along with qualifications-based selection, a comprehensive energy policy, infrastructure improvement, and Good Samaritan protection for engineers volunteering in a declared emergency).

And the president’s comments are especially fitting in light of a recent report from the National Research Council. The report predicts difficulties in establishing useful and effective K-12 engineering education standards and suggests that engineering education be folded into the standards that have already been established for science, technology, and math. The report also says federal agencies desiring improvement in STEM education should team up with foundations and professional engineering societies to develop core ideas for engineering education, instructional guidelines, research, and measuring the impact of possible reforms.

Obama can’t do it alone. Any desire to strengthen science, technology, engineering, and math education must be backed either by acts of Congress or action at the state level.

There is recent precedent for STEM support on Capitol Hill. NSPE backed a move by four members of the most recent Congress to bolster engineering and STEM education. Congress also reauthorized the America COMPETES Act in December. The program funds investments in science and engineering research and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education from kindergarten to the postdoctoral level.

And an early indication of the new Congress’s views on STEM could surface at the upcoming “Diversity and Inclusion Fuels Innovation in STEM Capitol Hill Day.” During this April 14 event, which NSPE is cosponsoring with the Society of Women Engineers, leaders from both groups will discuss the importance of science, technology, engineering, and math education with Congressional leaders.

Recognition of the importance of STEM from the White House is an encouraging advancement on an NSPE priority. Like all promises in the State of the Union, however, it’s what happens after the speech that matters most.