Partnering for Success

Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Amy Florence Fischbach, Contributing Writer

The engineering industry turns to mentoring as a tool to recruit and retain young electrical engineers

Twenty-seven-year-old Tyler Squire could crunch mathematical problems in the blink of an eye. When it came to applying his skills to the real world, however, he discovered he had a lot to learn.

David Hinckley, P.E., mentor David Wesemann, P.E., LEED AP, and Tyler Squire, EIT, collaborate on a job for Spectrum Engineers.

“Most of my education focused on microelectronics and circuitry too small for the human eye to see,” says Squire, who earned his master's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Utah. “When I graduated, I jumped into a new field, and without having someone to ask questions to, I wouldn't have been able to make it.”

Like many recent electrical engineering graduates, Squire had to learn the construction industry from the ground up when he landed a job at Salt Lake City-based Spectrum Engineers six months ago. For the past few decades, many universities have focused their electrical engineering programs on microelectronics and high-tech industries rather than construction. As a result, many electrical engineers need intense on-the-job training. To get today's electrical engineers up to speed, both consulting firms and plants are turning to mentoring programs.

Spectrum Engineers has mentored its young engineers for the last 26 years. When Squire was hired on as a project engineer, he partnered with David Wesemann, a principal electrical engineer. Wesemann immediately assigned Squire specific, defined tasks and then gradually gave him more responsibility.

Eric Schulz, a long-time mentor and project manager for CH2M Hill in Boise, Idaho, says there is a slight difference between mentoring programs at plants and consulting engineering firms.

As Squire continues to gain experience in the electrical engineering industry, Wesemann is entrusting him with more work. At his firm, recent college graduates have little interaction with clients for their first year. By the end of the mentoring relationship, however, they can take a project from beginning to end with little supervision.

“You can't let a new engineer get out in front of a client and deliver products without being mentored along the way,” Wesemann says. “Otherwise the quality of the work that goes out the door may not be there, and a firm could lose clients.”

If the young engineers are trained and mentored in the right way, however, they can become a valuable asset to a firm, Wesemann maintains. See Five Characteristics of a Good Mentor for specific traits successful mentors seem to possess.

Making mentoring work

If engineering firms execute a mentoring program successfully, they can ease the workload of their senior engineers, train the next generation of new hires, and retain more employees. The mentoring relationship can work a variety of different ways in the electrical industry. Young engineers who work in a plant or in a small engineering firm are often paired with a veteran. Oftentimes, small engineering firms mentor young engineers without even knowing it, says Loren Lacy, a 40-year-old electrical engineer, who has participated in the IEEE mentoring program (see Professional Engineering Associations Offer Mentoring Programs on page 44). The larger the engineering firm, however, the more structured the program needs to become in order to be successful, he says.

Toby Palin, an engineer at CH2M Hill, is heavily involved in his company’s mentoring program.

Lacy says plants also need to be organized when it comes to their mentoring programs. Two years ago, he helped a semiconductor software plant launch a mentoring program for college graduates. Many of the plant's young engineers were leaving after only three to five years because they weren't satisfied with their progress and didn't see a future for themselves at the company (see What Electrical Engineers Look for in an Employer on page 41).

“We wanted for them to see past their first job and map out their career path,” he says. “For us, it was a retention strategy.”

Before the plant started the mentoring program, at least two or three engineers would have been out the door within the 18-month period. Since the mentoring program has been in place, however, none of the recent college graduates have turned in their resignations.

“It was something that was unique to find in a plant environment,” says Lacy.

At Spectrum Engineers, mentors David Wesemann, P.E., LEED AP, and Jody Good, LC, IALD, FIESNA, USITT, LEED AP, (both standing) lead a training group discussion about energy-efficient lighting with (seated clockwise) Kurt Dallinga, P.E., RCDD, CTS; Tyler Squire, EIT; Scott Jenkins, EIT; Carlton Getz, P.E., CFA; and David Hinckley, P.E.

Eric Schulz, a long-time mentor and a project manager for CH2M Hill, an Englewood, Colo.-based engineering firm, says in his experience, there is a slight difference between mentoring programs at plants and consulting engineering firms. While consulting work varies from one hour to the next, work in a plant is often much more focused.

“Consulting work is so varied, and a person has to reinvent themselves so frequently,” he says. “If you are a person's mentor, you have to help them to navigate through a wide range of skills and possibilities.”

Learning curve

Whether engineers are working for a plant, a small engineering firm, or one of the nation's largest companies, they often reap the most benefits from a mentoring program that takes a personal approach, Schulz says.

“Organizations can put a framework and company values in place to facilitate mentoring, but it's not something that an organization does — it's something that two people engage in,” he says.

While mentoring programs can vary from one company or plant to the next, they often take anywhere from one year to four years, depending upon the young engineer's prior exposure to the design and construction industry.

When Toby Palin joined CH2M Hill nine years ago as a staff engineer, the Montana State University graduate knew the ins and outs of electrical theory, but was at a loss when it came to conduit bending and navigating the National Electrical Code.

“When you come out of school and you start doing the work, you quickly realize that you don't know anything at all,” says 32-year-old Palin.

Frequently, young engineers aren't necessarily lacking in technical knowledge, but rather in verbal and written communication skills and hands-on/field experience. Veteran engineers often have to teach their mentees how to write a clear and precise letter, respond to a client in a difficult situation, and handle conflict when it arises. Many times, recent grads need to learn how to communicate and deal with different personalities in the office, Lacy says.

“They are great at the theory, the math, and the technology, but when they first encounter a manager who has a certain style that doesn't match with theirs, they don't know what to do,” Lacy says. “They get frustrated and don't know how to approach it.”

Recent grads not only need to work on their social skills, but they also need to change their mindset when making the transition from attending college to working full-time.

“Rather than attacking projects in short bursts like they did in school, they need to think ahead in terms of years rather than semesters,” Lacy says. “They need to go from the sprint mode to the marathon mode.”

On-the-job training

Throughout the mentoring process, veteran engineers use every opportunity to teach their protégés how to do their jobs more effectively. Mentors and mentees correspond through e-mail, phone conversations, or face-to-face meetings. Shadowing is also an effective way for young electrical engineers to learn the ropes. At Spectrum Engineers, the principal engineers invite their mentees to accompany them to interviews for new projects, visits to the construction site, or field observations.

“They literally tag along to learn out how they supposed to act and what they're supposed to look for,” Wesemann says. “That way, when they're going into these situations, they're not going in cold.”

Shadowing may seem like a duplication of effort, but in the end, it's a worthwhile investment of the senior engineers' time, he says. The mentors must develop a daily and weekly plan to make sure that they are giving the mentees meaningful work.

“It does take some extra time and effort on the mentor's part,” Wesemann says. “At first, it's a time burden because you're doing things twice. You have to make that investment because the next time you'll only have to redo half of it. Then, the time after that, they'll do more on their own. Before you know it, the investment will pay off because they'll be helping to unload quite a burden off the mentor's plate.”

Mentors must find a way to balance the work they need to get done along with training a young engineer. Wesemann found that one of the most effective and efficient ways to fit mentoring into his schedule is to invite mentees into his office whenever he's working on an important project that carries a valuable lesson.

“The mentor has to look for every opportunity to pass along knowledge and teach them something every chance he or she can,” he says.