Order of the Engineer Speech
Order of the Engineer
3 December 2015
First, let me congratulate all of you are nearing the end of an educational journey that I am sure challenged you on many levels.
It probably seems as though you’ve been driving forward always trying to meet the next deadline for a test, homework, quiz, or presentation. Some have to balance work and family life as well. Some have to deal with family tragedies. “Running on Empty” comes to mind. It seems as though there is no time for reflection in our busy lives.
A metaphor for this is driving your automobile down a dry, dusty road. The faster and longer you drive, the more dust you throw into the air. When you look into the rearview mirror all you see is dust and it’s difficult to see the road you’ve been traveling because the dust obscures your vision. The only way to see where you’ve been is to stop for a time and let the dust settle. During our busy lives there seldom time to do this.
I’m going to ask a favor if you at the end of the semester take some time to let the dust settle. Look back over the road you’ve been traveling and contemplate how those experiences have shaped your person. I’m suggesting looking back on the road all the way back to your earliest memories.
From that point, each of you have traveled your own road and had your own unique experiences that have made you who you are today – both personally and professionally. It sounds cliché to say this, but I believe it – that each of you brings to the world a unique set of experiences that makes you one-of-a-kind. It takes contemplation to see this, once the dust settles.
To continue the metaphor you are now entering another road. I am asking you to contemplate how your uniqueness in experiences and talents can be used to make the world a better place. Each of you has taken an oath to follow the obligation of an engineer as you travel your new roads. Today we hear of tragic events around the world and even in our own country. We hear of intolerance, cutting corners to make profit, and many of our leaders appear not to care about the quest for truth and honesty. In this context, the idea following an old may seem quaint and naïve. But it is precisely because the idea of an old seems quaint and naïve, that we need the next generation of professionals to keep the concepts expressed here tonight alive.
You’ll make decisions in your personal and professional life. You will need to find the balance between these two worlds. You will find some decisions are easy because the ethical nature is clear and the price for choosing the ethical route is insignificant. A more difficult situation is clearly seeing the ethical decision, but the price for choosing it is steep and possibly career ending. Other situations may come and go before your awareness of the ethical considerations is evident and the damage is done. My least favorite, are decisions where insufficient information exists to make an informed decision between two bad alternatives – finding the one that results in the least damage. I cannot stand here tonight and claim I’ve always made the right decisions. I have failed. I have tried to learn from those failures and improve my ethical decision-making process for the next time. I’ve also made ethical decisions for which I have paid a price. I do not regret those decisions; I only regret those decisions where I did not make the ethical decision.
So as you go forward, the member who you are, and use those unique strengths to make a difference in this world. We need your principled and ethical decisions.
Godspeed on your new road.