by David Ball
Staff Writer
“How can you tell an extroverted engineer?” asked Steve Duba to his young audience. “When they are talking to you, they are staring down at your shoes.”
The hundred-plus local high school students responded with subtle laughter, acknowledging the stereotype associated with those who, like them, excel in math and science and maybe not as much in the social arena.
Still, Duba, chief of engineering for the local U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office, spoke of an entire industry perfect for students like them as he welcomed the group Friday to the sixth annual Engineering Career Day presented by the Army Corps and the Jacksonville Post of the Society of American Military Engineers.
The daylong event at the Prudential Building capped National Engineers Week, and the highlight was a design competition testing students’ knowledge of architectural and engineering principles. This year, students designed bridges using military computer software and then constructed models of their designs.
Students were thrown a loop when they had to solve a surprise design challenge of building trusses on their bridges and then see how much weight they could hold, and later an engineering trivia game tested their comprehension.
Several Florida colleges provided information on their engineering and technology programs, and 16 local engineering firms were on hand to answer questions about careers in the field.
Duba said some past participants determined their entire college track from the event. Friday, Tom Trimble explained to students the virtues of the Florida State University and Florida A&M University joint College of Engineering.
“It’s really a method for exposure. Many people many not even know there is a joint college of engineering in Tallahassee,” said Trimble, who added he was impressed with the articulate questions and probes from many of the high schoolers.
“This is my first time at this event, but it’s on the same level as our industry day with our college students,” he said.
Representatives of the local firms didn’t expect to attract new hires, at least not for another few years. Most said the goal was to get their company names in front of the students, although the career day also allowed the companies to network with one another.
Thomas Smith, a project manager with Robert M. Angas Associates, said he wanted to open the students’ eyes to an area of engineering they maybe hadn’t thought of as a career — surveying.
“We tell them that a surveyor has to turn the engineer’s design into where to dig,” said Smith. “It’s really community outreach and to raise awareness of our profession.”
But while some students may have narrowed down their college choices or gotten a bead on a career path, for many, Friday was all about the competition.
“We have one of the cheapest bridges,” said Taylor Davis, a junior at Eagle’s View Academy, about one of the building criteria: expense. “I think we’ll give people a run for their money.”
Davis, like many of the competing students, said she already has her engineering career pretty well mapped out: College at the University of Florida or Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and then a job designing and building cars.
“I know environmentalism is important, but I love cars,” she said.
Davis credited her teacher, Kevin Simmons, for an increased enthusiasm regarding math, science and engineering at her school and for bringing students to the competition.
Simmons, who took home back-to-back first place awards in 2006 and 2007, said the academic honors have brought the school as much pride as the many athletic honors it has won.
“Our school has multiple state championships in sports,” said Simmons. “But for the last year, the school has put our engineering award right up front in the trophy case for everybody to see.”
Here are the 2008 Engineering Career Day winners:
First — Greenwood School
Sue Tano, teacher
Brandon Barnwell
Greg Coffino
Jordan Beutel
Jennifer Stanley
Second — St. John’s Country Day School
Tony Wald, teacher
Phllip Robbins
Joe Patterson
Alex Wester
Erin Standish
Third — Fernandina Beach High School
April Hatton, teacher
Steven Rossmeissl
Haley Tan
Peter Davito
Vince Salucci