According to a recent report by the U.S. Power and Energy Engineering Workforce Collaborative, about 45 percent of the engineers currently employed by the Nation’s electric and natural gas utilities will be eligible for retirement over the next five years, creating a need for more than 7,000 engineers industry wide.
At the same time, there is a significant decline in the number of students who are choosing to study engineering and related disciplines. As a result, US utilities are facing what could become a crisis unless this trend is reversed.
National Grid is taking action to address this challenge with our innovative and comprehensive “Engineering Our Future” initiative to inspire youth and attract and develop engineers. We have already invested more than $3 million in this programme to target students of all ages and backgrounds to encourage them to study science, technology, engineering and math, collectively known as “STEM.”
The centrepiece of the US Engineering Our Future programme is the “Engineering Pipeline.” The Pipeline is a six-year development programme that creates a recruitment pathway for promising high school students who want to become engineers. About 60 students from across National Grid’s service area in New York and New England may participate in the Pipeline programme each summer for development programmes, job shadow and mentoring opportunities and social networking activities.
At the same time that demand for engineering is going up, engineering is becoming a less popular career choice. According to the American Society for Engineering Education, engineering bachelor’s degrees declined in 2007 for the first time since the 1990s, ending seven years of growth. The trend is predicted to continue for several years, as undergraduate enrolment dropped in both 2004 and 2005.
National Grid already has made significant investments in many community-based projects, funding research centres to support new and exciting technologies and partnering with organizations that provide programmes to educate teachers as well as students in the STEM curriculum.