A great piece from John Oliver on infrastructure in the US where politicians have repeatedly failed to address funding issues. Here in NZ politicians haven’t had an issue with raising fuel taxes but the problem is the money raised has all gone towards building the Roads of National Significance which is squeezing out funding for maintenance as well as more valuable state highway and local road projects.
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Sausage sandwich? Of course!
The US has a major problem with zero on maintenance, we have zero on public transport, and some token cycling projects. Not sure what is worst. Great take on US scene.They are planning action movies about routine maintenance, maybe we need to do the same with PT cycling and walking. Wow 2000 dams in Alabama and no bridge inspectors or only reason saw a major bridge fault buying a hot dog under the structure. Is that a bit like NZTA board having no Chartered Civil Engineers that specialize in transportation or Cheif Executive of MOT being an accountant? Yip.
For the Chief Executives, it’s about leading and understanding the issues, not necessarily being the subject matter expert in whatever discipline is being talked about at the time, that’s what advisers are for.
Having access to the skills and knowledge required for an organisation no longer means that they need to be employed in the organsation. Whether that’s a good thing or not is another issue.
Where are the senior engineers then with business experience are they managing accountant firms ie job swapping. Look jokes aside I think not having Chartered Civil Engineers with professional ethics (sustsinability, community well being. environment for current and fututr generations)and qualifications is a serious problem, at least in the top 3??,of all our transport organizations.
Many Chartered engineers just don’t have the skill sets to be high management. They are really good at what they do, smart as buggery when it come down to the technical bits. But put them in charge of large company and organisation and its doomed. This is a massive generalisation obviously but many engineers get stuck into the detail (which is their job!) and hence not that great at seeing the big picture.
This is coming from an Engineer who has also been guilty of the above. (Not seeing the full picture)
The same engineers are around doing the same work but as consultants on 3 or 4 times the $$.
Hmm, that must be why engineering has long been ranked as the most common undergraduate degree among Fortune 500 company CEOs (current ones include Microsoft, General Motors, Amazon, etc…). Apparently 33% of top 500 companies have engineering degrees (http://www.businessinsider.com.au/ceos-majored-in-engineering-2011-3). Perhaps not the same respect afforded by public organisations?
Now I know why my complaint to IPENZ about the transport industry didn’t get far. I should have complained to all the other institutions like Chartered Accountants etc as there is no engineer to be held accountable for ethics, engineering or anything?
GlenK – Sorry I was referring to infrastructure engineers as you know, kind of staying on topic. But yea if you want to bunch software, mechanical etc under the same umbrella, which I can assure you, are all different breads in their own rights.
I can’t speak for other institutions (and I can’t speak for older people working in industry), but here are some of the “non-technical” topics that are currently taught to my civil & natural resources engineering (i.e. infrastructure) students: creativity & problem solving methods, working in teams, risk assessment, project economics & accounting, decision analysis, organisation behaviour, communication skills (writing, presenting), project management/programming, environmental effects and RMA assessment, systems thinking, failure analysis and human error, consultation and negotiation, ethical theory and decision-making. Seems like a pretty good set of skills for someone in management to have…
Transport Blog, Generation zero you now have officially more engineering credentials backing you than NZTA Board and MOT combined. And it is good to know I can be more forthright about their levels of competence without worrying about my own ethics.