Educational crisis looms when the 'Space Cowboys' retire

Who will go to space, do engineering, do math without a calculator, major in science and IT?

The movie "Space Cowboys" showcases Clint Eastwood, James Garner, Donald Sutherland and Tommy Lee Jones as aging engineers, computer programmers and former spacemen who rescue a falling Russian satellite. Unfortunately, the movie's premise is closer to the mark than most people realize.

"The average age of the aerospace production employee now exceeds 50 years; the same number for engineers rises to 54," said John Douglas, CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association of America. "In 2008, 26 percent of aerospace workers will become eligible for retirement. NASA's personnel under 30 are one-third the number over the age of 60."

As shocking as those numbers may seem, a similar picture emerges in the engineering, science and mainframe marketplace in the United States. Within 10 years, for example, the bulk of current scientists will have retired, leaving a huge vacuum to fill.

"The percentage of people in the science and technical categories that are in their 50s and rapidly approaching their 60s has never been higher," said Dr. Richard Antes, president of University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in Boulder, Colo. "In the next 10 years, there is going to be a huge number of retirements."

While the popularity of high tech careers means that there is no shortage of programmers for Java or Microsoft tools, there is another crisis looming among older computer technologies such as Cobol, Fortran, mainframe and nonrelational database technologies. The guys who enthusiastically trained on this new technology in the fifties and sixties are nearing the end of the line. And no one is in training in America to replace them.

At Boeing, for instance, many of their mainframe and database support specialists have retired and the company was finding it increasingly difficult to find new personnel having the relevant skills. According to studies by Stamford, Conn.-based Meta Group, the age of mainframe personnel in data centers is much older than that of their counterparts specializing in Unix or Windows technology. Sixty percent of the people in data centers housing mainframes, for example, are 50 or older and 10 percent are over 60 years old. How does that compare to IT staffers who work on Unix and Windows servers? Twenty-two percent of Unix and Windows staffers are about 30 years old, compared with 5 percent of mainframe workers. At the older age group categories, only 8 percent of Unix- and Windows-trained IT employees are 50 or older.

"For our mainframe customers, attrition is disproportionate compared to the other platforms, and no new blood is coming in," said Meta Group analyst Rob Schaefer.

Out in the Cold Warriors

NASA is experiencing much the same trouble with its "Cold Warriors" - a baby boomer generation of scientists and engineers who grew up with the Cold War and helped launch the Apollo.

"In the next five to 10 years the Cold Warriors and the people who worked on Apollo are going to retire," said NASA Administrator Dan Goldin. "We have five to 10 years of that overlap between those who know how to do things and those who come in with brilliant new ideas.

Educational woes

Unfortunately, little effective work is being done to stimulate the country's education woes. Historically, the decline in engineers in the society appears to be a relatively recent event. The number of bachelor's degrees awarded in engineering increased steadily from 1900 until its peak in 1986 of 78,178 graduates, 7.9 percent of the total grads. It has since declined to about 63,000 per year and comprised only 5.5 percent of all degrees awarded. But if you look deeper at the figures, the decline begins to set in during the fifties. It was then that the percentage of engineering graduates peaked at almost 12 percent of the total. The overall percentage has since been in steady decline despite the total number attending college increasing sharply until the 90s.

And study after study demonstrates a surprising indifference to technology among today's youth. Last year's LemelsonMIT Invention Index, for instance, high-lighted the fact that teenage boys wanted to be athletes (42 percent) while teenage girls favored actress (32 percent) and musician (24 percent). Few of either sex demonstrate much engagement with science and technology.

Things are different overseas, though. Take the case of Russia: 50 percent of its graduates major in science; 55 out of every 10,000 people are engineers, one of the highest ratios in the world; 4 percent of programmers working in the world today are Russian. Microsoft Research figures that Russia graduated 180,000 people a year with the necessary skills to make it in IT. India came next with 60,000, and then China with 50,000. No other country in the developing world, including the United States, came close.

In engineering alone, the United States is being thoroughly outgunned. China produces three times the number of engineers, the European Union produces nearly twice as many and Japan about two-thirds more. No big deal? Consider that 22 percent of Fortune 200 CEOs have undergrad engineering degrees, the most commonly held. Engineering-based CEOs well outnumber their liberal arts, business or law counterparts. In the IT field, the number of bosses with technical degrees is even higher.

"It's the engineers, programmers and IT innovators who give the lawyers, administrators and sales people something to do," said Steve Heard, CEO of the Futures Channel, a Eos Angeles-based production company that focuses on education, engineering, technology and space. "We cannot continue to neglect technology as the forefront of our educational efforts."

Heard and his team are approaching the problem at a grassroots level. They have created a large digital video library profiling a range of careers and projects that involve real-world applications of mathematics, scienee, technology and arts. These popular programs give an insider look at how vital technology is in the real world and the many fascinating employment possibilities that spring from an early grounding in science and technology.

"We have to start early and give kids a reason for studying technical subjects," Heard said. "It's vital that we fire up the imagination of our young for careers in space, advanced computer systems, and applied engineering."

Rob Enderlee, an analyst with Enderlee Group, agrees with this approach. The Dot Com era's promised riches attracted a lot of people to IT who were then dumped into the unemployment line. Overseas outsourcing came in strongly in the interim and the projected upswing in the technology job market has failed to materialize. This has resulted in a PR problem wherein people don't get excited about IT anymore and don't see it as a worthwhile market.

"We have to go back to the basics - job fairs, recruiting in the schools, showing people that there really is a lot of future in technology," Enderle said. "Not everything is being outsourced by a long shot, yet many believe this is now the case."

Drew Robb is a free-lance writer. He can be contacted at enterprhenetwarksandservers.com.

Copyright Publications & Communications, Inc. May 2005
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