Editorial by Albert H. Miller, P.E., P.L.S, NSPE
President, National Society of Professional Engineers

2001 Chair, National Engineers Week

So it’s National Engineers Week. Well, who the heck cares? I’ll be the first to admit, these special commemorative weeks get listed on some secret calendar nobody except the insiders even know where to find, and then a guy like me pops up and asks you to believe it’s important. A tall order! Face it, I’ve seen special weeks that I won’t even mention because somebody will take offense that I’m cutting them down. I’ve asked myself, Who in the world would want to celebrate that? Since you’re probably asking yourself the same thing, hold on for just a few more paragraphs!

I sell engineering services, so my first instinct is to make you a client of my firm. But let me turn that on its head. Let me take some things away. I’ll be your genie for a week, and when I wave my hand, everything you own and use and visit that’s been created by an engineer will disappear.

Let me start small. Forget about that little light switch by your bed. Giving it a flick will leave you in the dark—I just took your electricity. Electric power engineers bring the juice to your house and design the equipment that produces it in the first place. Brushing your teeth also got nixed. Chemical engineers had their hands in the plastic for that nice little handle and those tough, prickly bristles. So you’re already foul-mouthed to start off the day. You’re thirsty and dirty too, because the engineers don’t exist to purify your tap water and keep your bathtub full. And don’t think you can get away with your battery-powered radio. Electronics engineers put those circuits together, so you’re either going to be depressed because you’ve got no music, or ignorant because you’ve got no news. Your milk and cereal also went out the window (even if you dream of an emergency generator)—mechanical and electronics engineers cooked up refrigerators to keep your milk fresh, and agricultural engineers figured out how to process the grains.

So now you’re on your way to work, depressed and dirty, sucking a mint, and driving on that nice banked curve on your usual highway, but now it’s not banked and you’re flying off the edge, and besides that, it’s full of cracks because the civil engineers weren’t around to design something safe that would last. But time out. I’m actually using kid gloves. You shouldn’t even have the highway, and you’d be on foot (freezing if you’re somewhere up north) because I’ve taken your car. That beloved possession happens to be designed by mechanical and automotive engineers, and when it comes down to it, about every other kind of engineer you might think of, from materials to software to audio to . . . (should I throw in the kitchen sink?).

I might mention, you’ve got no cell phone to call for help, and if you really want me to keep to my word, you probably don’t have a winter coat or shoes or even clothes, because engineers have a hand in a lot of those materials and designed the machines and the fasteners to make it all fit. (Shall I mention the zipper?)

So now you get to that big, handsome office building where you work—still hungry, dog tired, and about as naked as a dog—and you’ve got no computer to even start your job, because the computer and software engineers have been deep-sixed for the week. Of course, I’ve strung you along again, because you’ve got no place to even work—that tall office building stands up thanks to the design of a structural engineer.

You’re pretty much facing a wasteland! Sure, a few people might like this return to nothing, but if you’re like me, you’ll probably miss all these comforts and innovations and economic prosperity. I’d say that without engineers, you’ve had a bad day!

I once heard the story of a young girl who had spotted a National Engineers Week poster on the side of a bus in Washington, D.C. She said something like this, (and I’m not making this up!), "I guess engineers make everything that the Good Lord doesn’t." Well, maybe that’s putting engineers in too good a company! (And obviously excluding professions that shouldn’t be left out.) But this week, I’ll take it! We’ve been celebrating National Engineers Week since it was founded in 1951 by the National Society of Professional Engineers, so it’s fiftieth-anniversary time, and we feel pretty golden, without showing the years one bit. We’re a broad and varied profession that’s just getting stronger and more exciting, and we’re raring to make your day-to-day life smell sweeter than ever.

Now take all your stuff back. Engineers designed it for you. And have a good day!