Federal grant backs effort to keep engineers in region until economy recovers
Like many skilled engineers in the Vancouver-Portland metro region, Don Gross has been job-hunting for many months.
Gross, a hardware design engineer from Hillsboro, Ore., worked for 14 years at electronics company Tektronix before becoming an engineering consultant in 2003. That work has all but dried up near his Portland suburb, he said, and he’s starting to expand his job search to Southwest Washington, and even the San Francisco Bay Area, to stay afloat.
“There’s been so few jobs,” said Gross, “but it’s starting to pick up again.”
On Monday, Gross joined hundreds of other unemployed engineers at a career fair at the Hilton Vancouver Washington aimed at helping them find full-time or temporary work, start a business or pursue training.
The free event, sponsored by the Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council, is part of a larger effort to keep engineering skills and expertise in the region. The U.S. Department of Labor provided funding for the program with a WIRED grant to help develop a new manufacturing work force.
“We need them here for the recovery,” said Lisa Nisenfeld, the council’s executive director. “There aren’t many job openings right now but we expect there will be.”
Like Gross, many attendees had been laid off from manufacturing or technology firms throughout the metro area. Some 500 electronics manufacturing jobs have been lost since January, a 14.3 percent decrease, according to the Washington Employment Security Department.
The council joins employers and government officials concerned that highly educated and trained workers will leave the Pacific Northwest in search of jobs, creating a drain on talent here and eventually taking the region’s high-paying jobs with them.
“Our great state can’t afford to lose you,” said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell in a statement read to conference attendees.
New opportunities
Try something different. Look at an industry outside your expertise. Apply your engineering mind to the problem. These were among the many tips attendees heard at the fair.
At least one Vancouver company was there looking for engineers to enter a new field. Renewable Energy Composite Solutions, a new subsidiary of Christensen Shipyards Ltd., plans to build its payroll in coming months with a handful of production staff and engineers to start making fiberglass components for wind turbines and other clean technologies.
“Work is coming but it’s not here yet,” said Dean Anderson, director of finance for RECS, which has recently seen an uptick in requests for proposals from clean tech companies.
As the region’s economy shifts from natural-resources based industries and electronics manufacturing into clean technology and renewable energy manufacturing, engineers in those waning industries may be able to find work in new fields.
Contract work has picked up in the clean tech, health care, medical device, government and education sectors, said Melissa Perez, district manager for Kelly Engineering Resources, a temporary staffing agency for engineers, in Portland.
Perez advises engineers to try contract work with a company in hopes of getting hired full-time. She also suggests that engineers looking for “bridge work” — a temporary job to help pay the bills — stay close to the technology sector. By working in a tech-related job rather than retail, for example, candidates keep their résumé stacked with relevant experience.
Ulrich Hugel knows first-hand how difficult it is to find an engineering job after working odd jobs for about five years. Hugel, an electrical engineer with 20 years of experience in the industry, lost his job in 2005 and has since worked as a security guard and a factory technician before recently losing his job again. He hopes to resurrect his engineering skills.
“I was making 99K with four weeks’ paid vacation,” said Hugel. “I’m open to engineering again.”
