IEEE Potentials Magazine - May/June 2018 - 44
an example that a good engineering education, and the
thought processes that engineers are taught to use,
turn out to be valuable for many jobs. It is little wonder
to me that engineers are so successful, on average, in
fields that don't, at first blush, seem to need engineering
skills-medicine, law, business, and even government
leadership come to mind. It's just the same as the Navy.
Engineers are problem solvers, and the world needs
those skills in many places.
Words of wisdom
Treichler, as a young naval officer in 1972, taking pictures of the
Soviet Mediterranean Squadron.
in rank, deployed overseas four times, commissioned a
new ship, taken my ships through four shipyards, and
ended up leading 75 officers and enlisted men. All this
before I was 27 years old. I wasn't unique, of course. This
is what the Navy expects of its junior officers.
Preparation and process
What did my engineering education do to prepare me for
this? As a review, let's think about the engineering pro-
cess-clearly stating the problem to be solved, analyzing
the problem and the degrees of freedom available to solve
it, designing a solution, implementing the solution, testing
the result, training all involved to use the solution, and-
all along the way-communicating with everyone involved
about the plan to reach the desired outcome. (And if
money and schedule are important, doing the job within
those constraints.) Of course, when I was an undergradu-
ate student at Rice University, I thought in terms of solv-
ing problems with transistors and z-transforms. What I
didn't realize until about halfway through my time in the
Navy was that I was using the engineering design process
all the time-but I was using it to solve problems related
to personnel, equipment management and maintenance,
and even real-time ship maneuvering. The process that
engineers learn about in engineering school seemed to be
almost universally useful. It certainly was in the Navy,
and my experience since age 27 continues to prove that.
Engineers are trained problem solvers. Sometimes the
tools needed to solve the problem at hand are semiconduc-
tors and software, but the methods work on a far larger
management and leadership scale as well.
This isn't intended to be an advertisement for the
U.S. Navy nor any of the armed services. My story is
44
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May/June 2018
IEEE PotEntIals
I would like to provide you with a few pieces of advice
that I learned from my time in the Navy. I hope these are
useful to you if it turns out that your first job, like mine,
isn't exactly what you expected it to be.
■■You don't have to like what you are doing to do a
good job. No job is purely fun, and some are very lit-
tle fun (riding out storms in the Aegean comes to
mind), but your execution of your job to your person-
al high standard is important. You will notice, even if
no one else does.
■■You don't have to like your boss. My first boss (my first
captain) seemed to be aloof and unfriendly. In retro-
spect, he had a powerful positive force on my life. He
was thoroughly competent, which made him brave
enough to let 23-year-olds like me drive his ship. In
the process, he gave me the confidence to take on even
bigger challenges in my future life.
■■Even if your boss doesn't like you when you first meet,
your good work and loyalty to the common objective
can turn him or her around, and, in fact, make him/
her a lifelong friend.
Conversely, did my first job teach me things that helped
me in the engineering career that followed my tour in the
Navy? You bet. While another column could be written
about each one, I'll list just a few.
■■Virtually no engineering problem can be solved by one
person alone. As a result, engineering is a team sport.
Teams need leadership, and you definitely learn
about leadership (many good examples but some bad)
in the Navy.
■■Engineering solutions are rarely operated in the field
by engineers. As an "operator" in the Navy, I learned
that engineering solutions must be designed to be
used by sailors-and that sailors, on average, don't
know calculus, nor do they love buttons, knobs, and
lights added seemingly for their own sake. Equipment
built for engineers by engineers is almost always use-
less in operational practice.
■■The ability to communicate upward, downward, and
to your peers, in writing and verbally, tersely and in
detail, is crucial to professional success. It was true in
the Navy and is equally true outside of the service.
The good news is that the Navy taught me the value of
it. At this point in my career, I spend approximately
98% of my time communicating. You have to learn
somewhere how to do this. If you haven't already, you
should start.
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