Re: Request for Advice, Career Choices for an Old Guy

"How do we make the most of our hard earned skills when the demand is high?"

In Australia the term "peer reviewer" is all the rage. Must have come from some MBA topic on risk management. Being an old lag myself I have used my extensive network to get a role doing just this task on any number of jobs. Basically construction companies see value in experienced people casting an eye over what the "young and the adventurous" are doing. Teaching them to learn by your mistakes NOT making the same old mistakes again.

The other avenue is the "value engineer". There are standards and books on value engineering. You have to have been around the block a few times to be able to have enough workable ideas to be any good at this task.

Another avenue is the HAZOPs study. Experience is invaluable in such a task.

With all this activity someone is going to get sued. Demand for expert witness testimony has never been greater. Chat up the lawyers at the golf club and get on their gravy train. They are quite dumb when it comes to calim matters in engineering. Also you can handle claims of time extension, extras etc etc...

Geoff
--- In PipingDesign@yahoogroups.com, Thomas Laupa <tlaupa@...> wrote:
>
> Lady and Gents: Please be gracious to offer me some advice on a
> rather esoteric topic....
>
> The industrial economy is in a growth spurt. I've been working in
> industry for some time, and i haven't seen these levels of
activity
> since the late 70's and early 80's. This growth is making demand
for
> technical people, those who can build things, very high.
>
> During the last spurt i wasn't experienced enough or wise enough
to
> observe how best to capitalize on my skills. And in this spurt i
> find myself very very busy, but still making my salary as before.
Of
> course, i've been working for the same company for almost all this
time.
>
> I'm not a Pipe Guy, rather a project guy, but have been a member
of
> this list for some time. I often turn to this list for technical
> questions, but now let me pose a career question.
>
> How do we make the most of our hard earned skills when the demand
is high?
>
>
>
> Thomas G Laupa PE
> Senior Engineer - Nalco Company
> Office Address: 1601 Diehl Road, Naperville, IL, 60563
> Courier Address: 1003 Remington, Fort Collins, CO, 80524
> 970-227-5127
> 800-493-5009 fax
> ----------
>
>
>
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Received on Fri Apr 06 18:57:00 2007