February 29, 2014

States Explore Highway Funding Methods

The following piece, published in the July 1948 edition of American Highways, is a piece by Bernard Gray, then general manager of The Asphalt Institute, responding to data that the industry was experiencing a shortage of civil engineers for a variety of reasons (salary, opportunities for growth, exposure to the field in college, etc.). Today, state transportation departments are teaching the nation's youth about the vast array of options they have in transportation careers (not just highway civil engineering) and that education starts in elementary school instead of college, through programs like AASHTO's TRAC & Rides.

The article in the April issue of American Highways, by General Anderson of Virginia, dealing with the current shortage of highway engineers, should indeed make everyone stop and think. We have all been aware that it was difficult to obtain competent people in sufficient numbers to permit preparation of plans and the direction of construction at the desired rate, but to some extent this condition was assumed to be of temporary nature and at least partly related to the disruption of war. The statistics presented indicate very clearly, however, that the shortage is not temporary, but on the contrary has been developing for some time and is only now becoming evident in its real proportions.

In talking to a lawyer friend of mine about the matter, he expressed considerable curiosity as why such a shortage had occurred. On every hand he had seen great activity with huge equipment and he had just assumed that highway engineering must be very well paid work. As a matter of fact when I mentioned the starting salaries in many states he was still of the opinion that lawyers began for less, and furthermore that they had put in three or four years more college work than most engineers had done. Well, that conversation started me to make a little more study of the situation, and as suggested in General Anderson's article, I asked myself whether or not under present day conditions I would enter the highway field of engineering. Knowing what I do about the business, I still believe that I would, but if I only knew what the average student in college knows I am afraid that I would be looking for opportunities elsewhere just as the record indicates.

With regard to my own college, while I knew from previous talks with the Dean of Engineering that the highway courses were not particularly popular, nevertheless I was surprised that not a single graduate in 1948 planned to become a highway engineer. And yet in times past this college has graduated many outstanding engineers who have been quite successful in this branch of engineering. Of course I must admit that with $280 per month being the minimum wage accepted by last year's graduates, it was a little difficult to persuade a person to start in a highway department at $200 per month or even the lesser rate paid in some states.

However, I am also certain that a low salary is not the basic reason for not entering highway work. Not only are highway engineer students few in number but civil engineering majors constitute only about 15 percent of present graduating classes. In my own college, only 5 percent are civil engineers, as contrasted with an entirely different situation 25 years ago. Recently there were two good openings in our organization and I requested the College Placement Service to recommend some fellow alumni. Not a single one was available who had the needed background of experience.

Reference has been made to the fact that highway departments lost employees because they seek greener pastures. That is true, and I think it is not only to be expected but in addition it is desirable, provided we can have every year a new group of educated young men entering public work to serve at least a number of years and learn what it is all about. Not every engineer is qualified by temperament to be a good administrator in the higher brackets of public service, nor are there sufficient positions to take care of all the qualified candidates as they develop in capacity with the years. The very fact that industry and contractors supplying the highway field are able continually to employ trained engineers is a proper encouragement to the many who find after their apprentice period that their talents run in that direction.

Not only that, but in the long run such transfers force laggard legislatures to a proper appreciation of the necessity for retention of trained men in public work and that they cannot expect to continue to be served on a philanthropic basis. Recently, in making a new addition to our staff, I asked the state engineer if he would have any objections. He was definite in saying that he was distressed to lose the man, but on the other hand he thought his resignation might help bring home to his legislature the need for salary adjustments. I am glad to say that, in this instance, some increases have recently been made.

In addition to salary increases, there is another adjustment that must be accomplished in order that graduates will be induced to make highway engineering in public service a career. That, too, has been touched upon in the April issue of American Highways and in some aspects it is more serious than low salaries, particularly after someone has gone through the ranks and is beginning to have a position instead of a job. I refer to the political handicaps under which many highway departments are obliged to operate, and which have grown with the years.

The young engineer is not unaware of this situation, and he does not propose to enter a kind of work where, as soon as he advances to a reasonably good job, say district engineer, he runs the risk of being demoted or fired every time the state has a new governor. Now in making this comment I know that there are many states where civil service protects against discharge, bu tin some of these states it also militates against advancement, and the young engineer is familiar with that situation too and therefore looks elsewhere for a career.

It is too bad that in some way the public cannot be educated to the waste involved in the constant turnover in public work brought about purely by political changes. For a highway department alone it runs to millions of dollars. Just suppose a railroad or an industrial corporation fired or demoted all its key engineers every two or four years, not because they weren't capable, but just because they didn't belong to some party or because politico Bill Smith couldn't run them? They wouldn't last long, because that kind of an unstable employment condition could not produce results. If we do not establish our public service on a level about petty politics, we cannot hope to continue to attract the kind of engineers needed, similar to the ones who built the present system and who are largely maintaining it today.

We, as an engineer group, whether in public work or on the industry side of the fence, are largely to blame for this condition and it is high time that we did something about it. The so-called American way of life is dependent very largely upon engineers and engineering, and it will only require the right kind of action to gain for engineers the recognition that their contribution to the welfare of society merits. When we complain about the fact that graduate engineers do not enter highway work, we should remember that it wasn't too many years ago that we were graduates and that it has been in our hands to protect our position and we see to it that other groups did not usurp prerogatives that properly belong to us.

And just how is that to be done? Well, engineers are supposed to be able to analyze a set of conditions and prescribe the solutions to problems. In spite of the somewhat cynical mood prevailing today that the principal objective in life is to make money, I don't believe it. I believe that engineers work at their profession because they love it; because they can see facilities built and maintained where either none (or else inadequate ones) existed before. Just for the record I might say that I speak from experience. A few years after graduation I decided engineering progress was too slow and went into banking—did fairly well at it as a matter of fact, and was earning, or at least making, about $400 a month in the middle teens. But I didn't get any fun out of it and I returned to an engineering job at $175 a month and was never so happy over anything that I can remember.

I am sure that the situation is always the same with the man who really likes engineering and is fitted for it. What we need today is to take a leaf from the book of the merchant. After all, in an industrialized society, everyone is selling something no matter where he may work. Highway engineering is a high profession and it has a great deal to offer in the way of a satisfying life. Highway departments should have much better publicity on the subject. Instead of just a back page item, or none at all, on what is being done, have it properly reported. This should not be glorification of the man but an interesting account of accomplishments, pointing out the magnitude of the work, any unusual features, the huge sums involved and what they mean in building a better society. There should not be too many statistics and in publicity work of this kind set forth the story in general terms easily understood by the layman. The public is fair minded once they understand the facts and will applaud rather than criticize when they know those facts.

Highway departments are big business and it takes big people to run them properly. Where do you find corporations doling business of $20-80 million or more a year which expect to hire a president for $6,000 to $15,000 a year? I don't believe the public expects it either, once they understand it.

Every college and university should be canvassed systematically, not only at graduation time, but beginning in the junior year. In each state the highway department should arrange to have good speakers periodically attend the junior engineer society groups and put on a real sales talk. If we would just do half as much work in this regard as we do in trying to find new football material, I think we could make a showing rather quickly, and the coming years would find an ever-increasing number who would be attracted to highway work.

In this regard, it is pertinent to note that where definite effort has been made to present up-to-date courses in highway engineering, the percentage of civil engineering graduates engineering this field is above the average. Our own investigations indicate that most colleges will welcome any suggestions and help, either from the highway departments or industry, which will lead to a better course of instruction. The new subjects in highways at Oklahoma A&M, for example, have been very well received. Recently, I attended the opening lecture at the University of California in Berkeley, which was the beginning of a special series on highway materials and design. These are three hour periods on Saturday mornings, and where 60 were expected to register. This all indicates the degree of interest that may be expected if the courses are carefully planned.

And now in conclusion, I believe it is in order to offer a little encouragement, because really there is a great future for the undergraduate civil engineer of today. Only those of us who have been in highways for the past 30 years appreciate fully how many important jobs came into being after the end of the first World War. There was such a shortage of engineers that each highway department had to advance its men in order to keep another highway department from taking them away. I ran want ads in all the engineering magazines for over two years and paid the rate necessary to obtain good engineers. If they were good enough they were promoted, if they weren't they were fired. The result was that positions ranging from division engineer to chief engineer in state highway departments were filled with comparatively young men who, in many instances, have retained their positions until now. Within the next four or five years, these men will—in large measure—be retired and so, while opportunities for advancement have appeared to be rather restricted, such will not be the case over the next decade. Of course, these higher positions should be first filled by present subordinates wherever possible, but the turnover will mean an upward climb for a large number of the younger men, and provide new and better openings for the graduating engineer of tomorrow.

Then, in regard to salaries, while they lag behind in boom times, they do have a way of catching up, and when times come again which are not so good (and they, too, have a way of returning), the engineer in public work may find that he has chosen not only wisely for his own happiness in doing work he likes to do, but also well in respect to a reasonable income. There are great days ahead; the whole transportation—highways, railroads, airways—needs coordination, integration, and improvement. It will take years to do it. I believe that now is certainly the time for the qualified to study civil engineering, and to major in highway engineering as one of its most important divisions. Let every one of us take it upon ourselves to write and talk to our respective colleges so that undergraduates will envision this splendid future and take advantage of it.