Good Morning, Team! It’s Friday!
It’s Engineers Week, 2019!
When asked what inspired me to become an engineer, my answer is simple, my Father.
A few universal truths that came together for me when I was growing up in a family business:
1. Necessity is the mother of invention.
2. We are shaped by our environment.
3. Always leave things better than you found them.
It was necessary to make enough money to eat and Dad seemed to never catch a break so he made due with what was in front of him. Kind of an old school McGyver, we made a living and we shaped lives with the broken stuff no one else wanted or knew what to do with:
•Crushing concrete removed from the streets of Fargo when they separated storm sewer from sanitary sewer systems, converting it to aggregate used for commercial and industrial parking lots
•Hauling coal cinders from the local college-served as an effective binder with local soils spread as a layer under concrete mentioned above
•Repairing (or heating homes with) used wooden pallets from the old Steiger factory
•We drove and (constantly) repaired tired iron, the twice retired fleet vehicles people had given up on. The cost of entry was within our range and most people had forgotten about them before we resurrected those vehicles from various shelter belts
•Even the house we lived in was moved into the neighborhood and the garage moved in later was an old storage building we sided and made pretty (or at least acceptable so the neighbors didn’t petition us to leave)
There is ALWAYS more value, untapped potential, a new way to look at the pile of confounding and complex issues right in front of you.
I am proud to say that my two sons have become successful engineers and I have been blessed to grow up in the engineering world designing, managing and leading projects, efforts, people, divisions and companies who apply the same three universal truths mentioned above.
Dad started in the mechanical engineering program at Notth Dakota State College but never finished the program because the pressure to provide for his family won over school. His broken dreams have been recycled and turned into a legacy his grandsons keep alive today.
Have a blessed weekend!
published early because,
Although it is highly unlikely you’ll find an engineer tooting their own horn since it lacks humility and is an impractical use of their time. If you find or know of a wicked problem solver, a creative and critical thinker, give ‘em a back pat, atta boy, thumbs up or buy ‘em a beer. It’ll be enough.
Tenacious Cadence 