Over 100 companies such as Pratt & Whitney-Canada, Rolls-Royce, CD-adapco, and Ansys participated at the Turbo Expo held May 14 – 17, 2007 at the Palais des Congres in Montreal, Ontario, Canada.  This exposition exhibited the Global Gas Turbine Industry and showcased the products and services of engine manufacturers, software developers, publishing companies, and other organizations involved in research and experimentation for gas turbines.

At the ASME Early Career Forum hosted prior to the 2007 Gas Turbine Technical Congress and Exposition, several of the industry’s top executives presented on their experiences, challenges, decisions made, and lessons learned in order to achieve their career success.  Among these executives were:

 Tom Scarinci, General Manager of Energy Gas Turbines, Rolls-Royce, 
Presentation slides^{(pdf format)}

 Erick Vanhoutte, Director, HR and Skills Management, Dassault Systèmes Inc.
Presentation slides ^{(pdf format)}

“You want to make sure you stay yourself,” Scarinci states is his main piece of advice when mentoring young engineers.  When you think about what motivates you, whether it be creating something new, being the expert, or managing others, Scarinci declares, “There’s no right or wrong with any of these things.  It’s really about finding your own beacon by which you make those decisions” on what interests you most.  Do not try to be your role model, be yourself and make it your own.  You will not succeed in someone else’s shoes. 

Scarinci has a background in Research and Development (R&D) at Rolls-Royce, taking the aircraft engines and converting them to burn on natural gas and kerosene, for land-based applications.  During the forum he asked “What’s Early Career?” which is different depending on the industry.  However, from his R&D perspective, he stated that the end of the Early Career was after your second year of experience.  Of course, training begins on day one and continues throughout the career, but after two years, he believes the early career engineer becomes completely autonomous, if desired.  In order to be recognized as a gas turbine expert, on average it takes about 10 years, the same as the medical profession.  During these ten years, Scarinci states that as an early career engineer you will begin to reshape how you see the rest of your career and how you see yourself or what to rely on when you get into an unknown situation.  “Be enthusiastic and enjoy the first ten years, it’s your call, to a certain extent, on where you will be following the ten years.”

Scarinci had a major take-away point in his presentation; “You are only as good as what you are able to communicate.”  If you are an engineer that is understood, and mindful of your audience, you have the core skills required in the engineering field and for being respected.  In response to Scarinci’s question about developing global engineers, “What does being global mean?” Scarinci defined it as “the ability to use intellect, intuition, and communication skills” along with identifying societal needs.    Intellect, or formal learning, comes from the engineering degree and must be engaged at all times in your career.  Intuition, or emotional thinking, comes from experience and is developed over the first ten years.  Communication skills should either be present or being worked on the first day of the early career years.  Great communication is not having perfect English by any means; it is being able to clearly identify your thoughts and processes, no matter what language you speak.  Staying in tune with societal needs is imperative for developing ideas that impact the world and becoming that expert that you are motivated to be.

“What I want to share with you is how the next generation of tools, processes, IP (intellectual property), the engineer of tomorrow, which is today, is no longer about numbers.  It is a whole lot of other things,”  Erick Vanhoutte proclaimed during his presentation.  At the heart of this next generation package is intellectual property; “Today consumers have access to information spontaneously.  When we are late for something, we just turn to the internet to Google it.”  So, in order to compete on a global basis, the engineer must use intellectual property to work on the latest and greatest with the least amount of productivity, cost, and turnaround time.  “If you are working on the best and latest technology, you are probably stalling a customer’s decision to buy a product from a competitor.”  Vanhoutte stressed that engineering is no longer about just providing design, but also bringing profitability and driving revenue as well.  He said that the two key words for young engineers to learn early are revenue and profits, which is about product lifecycle management, or reducing waste and prototyping without wasted manufacturing.  This is no longer someone else’s problem, but the engineer who is behind the product, or the heart of the product.  “You want innovation and collaboration.”

Vanhoutte, who has a background in Product Data Management Software, said that his company has recently been spending a great deal of time setting its vision for the next 25 years.  “It’s really about tying in concepts of engineering, the concepts to society, of the environment, of education, to make sure we can drive a better overall society.”  In closing his presentation, Vanhoutte made several great remarks, “look back through history, the greatest civilizations ever all had engineering at the heart of it.  Whether they were Aztec, Roman, Egyptian, whether they were military driven.  You may not think that engineering was behind it, but the Romans won - why, because they had better technology to go to war.  So you are at the root to make a difference.  Use your talent, use your skills, work together, make the difference.”