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01.12
Career Focus:
Non-Engineering Careers for Engineers
By John R. Platt
Not everyone who gets an engineering degree or
who starts their career as an engineer spends
their whole life working as an engineer. But
while those who move on may leave behind their
hands-on daily exposure to semiconductors or
energy systems or software, the education and
experience these people received often remains
valuable to them through the rest of their
careers.
Let's meet five of these brave
souls who started their professional lives in
engineering fields but decided to blaze their
own trails.
The Salesman
When Jim Stormont entered Purdue
University in 1959, he already knew what he
wanted to do. His goal was to study industrial
engineering but then go into technical sales.
"At the time, it was unheard
of," he laughs. "People told me, 'What a waste
of an engineering degree!' But I made a hell of
a lot more money in sales than I would have as
an engineer."
Stormont joined Square D Company
in 1964, a time when very few of his competitor
salespeople were also engineers. "Anybody can be
trained to demonstrate a product," Stormont
says. "The real thing in sales is in
understanding the customers' problems."
As an example, Stormont talks
about a fairly common technology, the limit
switch. "I can hold one in my hand and tell you
everything I know about it in about 30 seconds.
But the application of limit switches is fairly
complex."
Instead of starting with a sales
pitch, he would go down to the factory floor and
ask the person in charge of maintenance what
problems people where having with their
electrical systems. "I was there to solve
problems. My competitors knew how to put the
sales pitch out, but when an engineer told them
'here's what's going on,' they got lost."
Solving a problem, he says, gave him instant
credibility. "If I can eliminate a problem, I'm
a hero."
Today, more salespeople in the
technology arena have high-tech degrees, making
Square D's long-standing policy of only hiring
salespeople with four-year engineering degrees
rather prescient. "By the 1980s," Stormont says,
"engineering schools were offering sales
engineering as an option." He says the advent of
computers, solid-state processors and other
advances made factories more complicated, so the
salespeople who did not have engineering
backgrounds eventually got lost.
Stormont climbed the sales
ladder until he became a vice president of sales
and marketing. Today he's retired and serving as
the president of the Boothbay Harbor Rotary Club
(the same club that I belong to), but he says he
remains "a philosopher of sales."
"The key to sales," he says, "is
being able to relate to a person in a
non-threatening way when they come to you with a
problem. Most salespeople run away from
problems. You need to run straight in and help
the customer solve the problem, even if your
company caused it in the first place."
If you're interested in going
into technical sales, make sure your people
skills are up to the challenge, says Stormont.
"You could be the smartest engineer in the
world, but if you can't interact with people in
a pleasant way, you won't make it. Be
trustworthy. If people listen to you, like you
and even want to steer sales your way, that's
what sales is all about."
The Marketer
Inspired by a childhood viewing
of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," Phil Bishop
originally wanted to be a dentist, much like the
character Hermey the elf. But a career counselor
at the University of Michigan told Bishop that
if he studied anything in computers or
engineering, it could more likely lead to a good
job. He ended up getting his BS in electrical
engineering and computer engineering. "I really
liked it," he says. "I met my wife in my
engineering classes. She stayed an engineer, and
I moved away from it."
Bishop's early career saw him
working in ASIC design at Boeing Electronics and
Motorola Semiconductor. He then moved to Mentor
Graphics, where he migrated not only into sales
but started his climb into senior management. He
got his MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at
Duke University, and then was the CEO of two
startup companies. Today he is the corporate
vice president of worldwide marketing at Magma
Design Automation in San Jose, Calif., where he
and his team are responsible for product,
solutions and corporate marketing, as well as
corporate strategy and planning.
"The ability to be successful
through these non-engineering careers has been
the engineering," he says. "Having that initial
engineering experience has been fundamental."
He says his engineering
background grounds him and allows him to add
value to everything he does. "I'm not just
managerial. I understand the technology. I feel
comfortable building and giving a presentation.
Some customers look at a marketing person with a
jaundiced eye, but they look at me and I
understand what their challenges are and how our
services can help. I'm much more interested in
solving their problems."
Are you interested in moving
into marketing? "The quality of your ability to
market or sell is directly proportional to your
ability to listen," says Bishop. "Great
communicators aren't great talkers, they're
great, great listeners." He suggests finding
someone who is already one of your company's top
marketers and enlisting them as a mentor.
"Emulate him and get his guidance."
In addition, concentrate on your
writing and presentation skills. "In marketing,
you want someone who's good at both writing and
speaking," Bishop says. "It's really hard to
find an engineer who can write well."
Beyond that, Bishop says, look
inside yourself. "If you really have a desire to
get out there, to go global, to be on the front
line with customers, then marketing could be a
good fit."
The Patent Agent
It's not every engineer who gets
to work from home — in the Bahamas. But that's
how John W. Maly spends his days.
With a BS in Computer
Engineering from Syracuse University and his MS
in Computer Science from Stanford under his
belt, Maly started his career as a computer
engineer at HP. Unfortunately, a good education
didn't make his career recession-proof. With his
career prospects dwindling, Maly instead decided
to study for the patent bar. It took time and
money, but within a week of passing the exam, he
had his first job offer. He then got his law
degree and moved into intellectual property
consulting. He founded John Maly & Associates in
2005.
"You need an engineering degree
from an accredited school to even take the
patent exam," Maly says. Certain specialties —
such as biochemistry — require a Ph.D., but
success in the patent field also requires some
career experience. "You generally have to go
over your engineering credentials with your
clients," he says. "You need to not only be
versed in your field, but have a few years in it
to understand how things work and the
practicalities of the design cycle."
Maly says he does a lot of
patent evaluation work, which comes into play
when companies are buying or selling patents, or
litigation support, when companies are suing
each other over their patents.
Things move more quickly in
patent law than in engineering. "I'm constantly
learning something new," he says. "Every year,
people are suing over different things." If he
had stayed in engineering, he would have
expected major changes every three to five
years. Now things change every year or two. This
year, for example, most of his litigation
support is focused around gaming technologies.
Next year, he predicts, it may be something
completely different.
Making the switch to working as
a patent agent is not something you can do
quickly. "The patent bar is a really tough test,
and it's expensive to take," he says. He
borrowed the money and materials he needed to
take the exam, studied for four or five months,
and luckily passed on the first try. "The
pass rate that year was around 60 percent,"
he says. "In 2003, it was 37 percent."
Being a quick learner and a
self-starter are essential in the profession,
says Maly. "You need to be good at teaching
yourself new areas of technology without anyone
helping you." He also points out that it's a
very small field, and reputation plays an
important role. "Professional responsibility is
more important than anything else. Reputation
matters. My entire client base is
word-of-mouth."
The Education Entrepreneur
Ted Jordan got his start as a
virtual reality engineer for General Motors,
working on driving simulators, but "I always
wanted to have my own company," he says. Using
experience he gained working for Silicon
Graphics and Sun Microsystems, he did just that,
founding Funutation Tekademy LLC in 2003. The
company runs summer camps and other events that
teach kids how to write computer games, program
robots, build web sites, and other STEM-related
skills.
How did he get started in
education? "When I was at Silicon Graphics, and
then at Sun, I did a lot of tutoring and
training," he says. "It has always been
something I enjoyed doing. It seemed like a good
fit."
When he first left Sun, Jordan
started a company to provide Linux training and
support. At a seminar, he met a woman who asked
if he'd be interested in creating a class to
teach kids to write computer games. The idea for
Funutation was born.
"It comes a little naturally to
me," he says. "My mom was a teacher. I learned a
lot from her." His goal is to make the teaching
at Funutation invisible. "The kids see the
device. The parents see the education side."
Jordan is more than a teacher;
he also runs his company. It's a challenge to do
both, he says. "It's the battle every
entrepreneur goes through."
One of Jordan's goals is to
influence the next generation of engineers by
showing kids how much fun the work can be. "I
remember when I was in college I looked at
calculus classes and didn't think I could do it.
The earlier you can take that intimidation away,
the better."
A lot of engineers do find their
way into education, but usually on the college
or graduate level. Working with kids age 8 to 15
has a different level of reward, and Jordan says
that if you enjoy it, you should embrace it.
Still not sure if you're the
right person for the job? Jordan suggests
downloading an open-source program like MIT's
Scratch or Carnegie Mellon's
Alice. "Put together a workshop and see if
kids like it," he says. "It is difficult work,
but it shows the kids if they have the mind for
it in a very non-intimidating way."
The PR Coordinator
Sukanya Vijayakumar always
wanted to be a writer, even when she was
studying for her bachelor's degree in
engineering. "At college, I did a lot of writing
and editing for campus publications," she says.
She started her career as a programmer at
Cognizant Technology Solutions in India, "but I
wanted to continue my writing and creative
work." She decided she wanted to combine
engineering with the written word and, after
getting her master's degree in mass
communications at the Walter Cronkite School of
Journalism and Mass Communications, started
searching for a job where she could fulfill both
of her passions.
It wasn't an easy quest, mostly
because of the bad economy. She also limited her
job search to technology companies. Eventually
she landed a position and is now the public
relations coordinator for Junction Networks in
New York City.
Her background in engineering
enhances her ability to do PR by shortening her
learning curve, she says. "I interface with
engineers on a daily basis." She helps translate
technical information into everyday language for
her company's business users, while also writing
blog posts, press releases and other
communication outreaches. Soon, she expects to
be leading webinars and writing white papers.
"This is what I wanted to do,"
she says. "If you know what you're passionate
about, go for it. The amount of satisfaction
you'll get out of it is worth it."
John R. Platt is a freelance
writer and entrepreneur, as well as a frequent
contributor to Today's Engineer,
Scientific American, Mother Nature
Network and other publications.
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