Michael Giberson
You don’t want them picking up their ideas about oil on the streets:
And the education must begin early, he told a luncheon crowd of industry professionals at OTC.
“When we don’t inform our children about petroleum facts,” he said, “someone else is going to do the job for us.”
“He” is Abe Palaz, director of educational and R&D Partnership at Halliburton, talking about the engineering talent pool for the oil and gas industry, to an audience at the Offshore Technology Conference. The OTC, apparently the place to see and be seen in the oil and gas business last week, recently concluded in Houston.
The Houston Chronicle has had coverage, supplemented by the Chronicle’s own energy blogging at NewsWatch: Energy.
ADDED: A related story from the Houston Chronicle: Worker shortage looms large.
That’s important advice. Many homes began recycling because kids pestered their parents with “guidelines” they learn at school. Next thing you know, they will start telling mom and dad that they want to BIKE to school 🙂
I don’t know about petroleum engineers, but chemical engineering graduation rates are very sensitive to starting sallaries.
Back in the mid ’90’s, chemical engineering sallaries skyrocketed for a few years, increasing graduation rates significantly, helping to fuel a bust a few years later (the Asian financial crisis was probably the root cause of the bust).
Seeing as how starting sallaries for new ChemE grads at the big oil companies are well over $80k, I expect to see more students interested in chemical engineering.
Also, my experience is that chemical engineering attracts more women than the other disciplines. Maybe because it is more theoretical and less attractive to “tinkerers” like mechancal or electrical engineering is.