Left to right, Colonel Alex Dornstauder, commander and district engineer of the Los Angeles District of the U.S. Army of Corps of Engineers; Geraldine Knatz, a member of the Viterbi School's Board of Councilors and executive director of the Port of Los Angeles; Ronald N. Tutor, a USC Trustee and president and CEO of Tutor-Saliba Corp; G. Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology and moderator Edward Reynolds, another member of the Viterbi School Board of Councilors and president of the Reynolds Group.

G. Wayne Clough, president of the Georgia Institute of Technology addressed a rapt crowd of over 400 faculty, students, alumni and industry guests at a banquet in Town & Gown on the USC campus at the fifth USC Viterbi School centennial lecture on March 7. 

 

The lecture, sponsored by the Viterbi School’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, was combined with the 12^th Annual Associated General Contractors Symposium featuring a panel comprised of Ronald N. Tutor, a USC Trustee and president and CEO of Tutor-Saliba Corp; Colonel Alex Dornstauder, commander and district engineer of the Los Angeles District of the U.S. Army of Corps of Engineers; Geraldine Knatz, a member of the Viterbi School’s Board of Councilors and executive director of the Port of Los Angeles; and moderator Edward Reynolds, another member of the Viterbi School Board of Councilors and president of the Reynolds Group.

 

The overall theme for the evening, which was organized by engineering students of the USC Associated General Contractors, was “Constructing the Future.” But Clough, who chaired the recent National Academy of Engineering (NAE) project, “The Engineer of 2020,” spoke on “The Turning Point for Engineering: Can We Adapt?”

 

“Our engineering workforce is being challenged by the global economy and the rapid developments that are occurring there,” he said.  “We have a population of six billion people, will add two billion more by 2025 and maybe two billion more by 2050 when it will supposedly be slowing down.

 

“Where will all of these people live?”

 

Clough said that if the world’s population in 2025 were represented by 100 people, 56 would live in Asia, 16 in Africa and seven in Eastern Europe and Russia.  Only four would live in the United States.

 

“We’re going to have to think about the fact that we are going to be very much in a minority in terms of world population by 2025,” he said.  At a retreat during the 2020 project, Clough said a bright group of academics compiled a list of what they saw as the world’s greatest looming challenges.  The list included fresh water supplies, aging infrastructure, energy demand, global warming, new diseases and security. “This is very much about civil engineering because of the growth of populations, the movement of populations and the concentration of populations to our coasts and cities.”

 

He said that there have been dramatic changes in global economy and societies during the past five to 10 years with the advent of instant communications through the high-speed Internet, removal of trade barriers, terrorism and sustained investments in higher education by countries like China and India. 

 

“In some of the underdeveloped countries, we’re seeing a strong development of technology that will be in competition to ours.  That’s not a bad thing,” he said.  “Those countries deserve their opportunity to develop.”

 

But he noted that in many U.S. states, support for higher education is declining.  While the number of B.S. and M.S. engineering degrees being granted in the U.S. is “in a steady state,” the number of doctorates is declining. 

 

G. Wayne Clough answers a question at the end of his lecture.

“This trend downward in doctoral degrees in engineering is particularly disturbing coming at a time when we look at Europe and Asia and see a very clear trend upward,” Clough said.  “We should be concerned because it suggests that we are going to be outnumbered in a coming era when technology will drive the world’s development.”

 

A joint report by the NAE with the National Academy of Sciences is calling for 10,000 new K-12 math and science teachers, and a doubling of the current annual total of 70,000 engineering graduates.

 

In addition to graduating more engineers, engineering education has to change.  Clough said that in the past engineering education has changed only when driven to do so by outside forces.  This time the goal of the National Academy of Engineering’s Engineer of 2020 project is to anticipate the future and adapt to it. 

 

Clough said the engineer of 2020 would need to have analytical, management and communications skills.  Lifelong learners, they’ll have to be dynamic, agile, resilient and flexible.  They’ll coordinate more closely with industry than today and they’ll be more innovative. Most important of all is that they’ll have to be adaptive leaders, that is not only prepared to lead, but who are equally as well prepared to support someone else’s leadership.

 

“I think engineers have emphasized being team players so much that they have de-emphasized being leaders,” he said, and then addressing the students in the audience he added:  “You have to be ready young folks.  You need to know how to be a leader.”

 

He decried the lack of involvement by engineers in setting public policy, saying that too many engineers want to get involved only within the narrow boundaries of their own specific areas of expertise.

 

“I don’t think there is a person in Congress who ever worried about that.  Every day they make decisions on technical subjects and have no end of shame in making those decisions,” he said.  “It says something about engineers.  We don’t like to get out of our safe zone.”

 

“This may be our last best chance to compete,” said Clough.  “The world’s leaders in innovation will also be the world’s leaders in everything else.”