' Engineers Would Enjoy Some Appreciation '

By ; Dr. Robert C. Seamans, Jr.

NASA Deputy Adminstrator, 21st.December 1965 to 5th.January 1968.
Ninth Secretary of the US Air Force.
Senior Lecturer in Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT.
Induced in 1985 into the World Level of the Hall of Fame for Engineering. Pioneered the Development of Advanced Systems of Flight and Guidance for Modern Aircraft.

By Robert C. Seamans, Jr.

Candice Bergen, Magic Johnson, Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby share something in
common. If you know only about two of them, you are not aloneÑand that says
something distressing about our country's future.

Candice Bergen is the star of the hit television show "Murphy Brown." She won
the Emmy Award a few months ago. Magic Johnson of the Los Angeles Lakers won
this year's Most Valuable Player award of the National Basketball Association.

Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby also won an award recently at the October 3 annual
meeting of the National Academy of Engineering. They were the first recipients
of the Charles Stark Draper Prize, given for outstanding achievement in
engineering and technology. They won the $350,000 prize for their invention of
the integrated circuit, or semiconductor chip, the electronic breakthrough
that made possible personal computers, digital watches, automated bank
tellers, and other devices that have changed our lives profoundly.

Their circuits have made the information age a reality, creating a revolution
in all major industries, from banking to transportation to communications.

Any historian looking back a century from now would conclude than Noyce and
Kilby had a more consequential impact on society than Johnson and Bergen. Yet,
even after winning this prestigious prize, their names are known to fewer
Americans than those of many soap opera stars. This contrasts with Japan,
where technological innovators are admired widely.

It is easy to view this situation lightly, but it poses a serious threat to
our vitality as a nation. With military tension between the superpowers
declining, other international forms of competition will grow in importance.
Technological strength will become an ever more vital source of national
prosperity and security.

As the recent Voyager mission to Neptune illustrated, the United States
remains a world leader in many technological fields. Yet our competitiveness
in other technical areas is sagging. Our manufactures of steel, automobiles,
and other products have lost ground to foreign firms and our students perform
miserably on international tests of math and science. Foreign companies are
battling us for the lead in electronics, superconductivity, ceramics,
biotechnology and other fields on the cutting edge of technology.

Nor are we training enough Noyces and Kilbys for the future. The National
Science Foundation recently projected a shortfall of 765,000 college graduates
in natural science and engineering disciplines and a shortage of more than
100,000 PhDs by the year 2006.

Having spent my career in both the military and technological arenas, I am
deeply disturbed at what this apparent worldwide shift from military
competition to technological competition portends for our nation. When we were
attacked at Pearl Harbor, we rallied to the cause with unsurpassed vigor. Now,
we seem nonchalant to the perils posed on the technological front. Our failure
to remain vigilant will mean fewer jobs, less financial and industrial
capability, weakened national security, and a reduced standard of living.

Young Americans should know that a career in engineering can be as exciting,
and certainly as significant, as one in television or basketball. Few things
in life can compare with the satisfaction of designing a product that people
want and need, or of finding a way to manufacture something more efficiently.

The specific needs of US technology are considerable: more federal support for
education, greater rewards for risk-taking and investment, improved
facilities. Yet the most pressing need is to bring technology from the
periphery to the forefront of our national consciousness. A country famous for
Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers should take more pride in the modern day
accomplishments of Noyce, Kilby, and others like them.

Robert C. Seamans Jr., senior lecturer in the department of aeronautics and
astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, formerly was secretary
of the Air Force, president of the National Academy of Engineering, and a dean
of MIT's School of Engineering. He chaired the selection committee for the
1989 Draper Prize.