Engineering Management

Engineering Management: An Irreverent Primer is a "how to do it" book on the management of the engineering function in industry. This book was written for the new engineering manager and for those who aspire to becoming an engineering manager. The step from senior engineer to manager is a big one and the management of other professionals is not easy. Engineering management is both technical and business management. It is a learned skill and every engineer so inclined can learn it. This is my attempt to get the things I have learned over multiple years in engineering management on paper. Since I had a varied career from front line, hands in the gear, technician through all the intermediate steps to top engineering management for multiple businesses and industries, there are a lot of lessons learned. I also had the opportunity to attend multiple in house and external training programs. Each had value although some more than others. Over the years I became convinced that engineering management was either not very well taught or not taught at all at engineering schools. I guess new engineering managers were supposed to pick up the additional skills required through osmosis like I did. It was a painful process and took a long time. Consequently, I made a concerted effort to train my engineering directors and managers as best I could. Now that I am retired, I can pass my approach to engineering management on to others.
About the Author: Jack Wells enlisted in the U.S. Navy in June, 1960 right out of high school. He attended Penn State University (BSEE, minor in Management) under a full Navy scholarship, and was commissioned Ensign, USN, in 1966. He served aboard destroyers, intelligence ships, and mine sweepers in Japan and the war zone during the Vietnam War. Released from active duty as a Lieutenant in December, 1970, he progressed to Commander, Surface Warfare, in the reserve component, serving as Commanding Officer for four different units and retired with 23 years total service. His civilian career started in 1971 as a maintenance general foreman at a food processing plant. He served as plant engineer for two sites. Relocating to the corporate office he was a project engineer, senior project engineer and manager of engineering. In 1981 he became director of engineering for a small international processing firm. He constructed a meat processing facility in Venezuela, expanded fruit processing in Mexico, and dry powder handling in Canada. In 1983 he joined a large multinational consumer products company, where he was a site engineering director, then a regional engineering director, technical director and ultimately a top corporate technical executive with responsibilities involving twenty plants and 150 engineers. He was instrumental in the development of new products, new equipment and the construction of factories in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Indonesia. He consulted extensively to business operations in Europe, Asia, and Australia and retired.