OT Engineers / Scientists, How many are out there Options

[914nerd]

Well, how many of you are there lurking out here on the world?
If you are one, what field, what do you actually do, and how do you like what you do?

This is prompted by a conversation that I had earlier today questioning the future of technical fields in this country.
What do you people think about the fact that science (arguably one of the most important aspects of modern life) is being shunned and, in many ways, is beginning to fall apart?

[Katmanken]

Uh Oh, I 've been spotted.....

Mechanical Engineer taught by the rocket scientists that put man on the moon. Compulsive tinker and constant builder of small devices. Able to fab parts.

11 years in computers and computer peripherals designing and testing printers and displays,

3 years in gee whiz military/aerospace- designed and developed satellite communications systems, early star wars, lasers, saatellite antennas, mass data storage systems and had a "clearance"

14 years in medical devices. Got in on the ground floor of endoscopic surgery designing and developing medica devices. Prolific inventor- 22 issued patents and about that many chugging through the patent office...

Now I'm a registered Patent Agent writing and prosecuting patents with the Patent office. I now work for a law firm and went from cubicle boy (engineering) to rosewood office man.

And for Jake, I tink. Gimme a hammer, a sandbag, and a scrap of metal and I make flares. Give me a bunch of tubing, some UV cure glue, sheet metal and a model shop full of tools, and I can deliver a working medical device prototype that bends and articulates and places fasteners in tissue. And, it all fits in a shaft as big around as your little finger and fits down a half inch diameter tube.

As per today, the sales whores have taken over this country. No longer do we worry about having smart engineers making things, we just make sales.... The sales guys (no engineering degree) have taken over and run the companies that used to make things and they believe that the future of engineering is a pack of Indian or Chineese engineers working for $4.95 a day making products to earn them a big sales commission. I used to work for a huge well known and formerly respected company. One day they informed me I was no longer needed as a technical innovator creating ingenious working products, but innovation was now redefined as "an innovative business or sales process" and I just didn't fit.

Any questions why their stock hasn't gone up in 6 years, why their quality and reliablity went down, why they are losing sales, and why their malpractice lawsuits are increasing?

Ken

Ken