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Skills gap 5: What are desired skills?
October 12, 2007

As a card carrying member of the baby boom generation (1955 to be precise) I recall a time when people like me were described as "mechanically inclined." While that term doesn't have a very specific definition, it usually included personal skills such as the ability to use tools, understand mechanisms, make things, and the general concepts of understanding how things work. Why does an airplane fly? How does a car engine work? These involved basic scientific concepts of physics and chemistry too. (If this is beginning to sound like a familiar tirade, I've discussed these topics before in other ways.)

Mechanical skills were part and parcel of this mindset. If you had an interest in electronics, you had to be able to drill holes to mount a tube socket and solder wires. But are these basic skills also falling into the gap?

Several years ago, I built a model of a stationary steam engine. I bought a kit that had a group of unfinished castings and a set of drawings. I didn't do it because I needed it. There really isn't much you can do with a 5/8 x 1 inch engine. The whole project was a test to see if I had the skills needed to make a group of fairly complex parts according to a plan and have them all fit together. As a self taught machinist, I can say that it isn't the prettiest work ever done, but all the parts fit and the engine works.

This brings me back to my friend Joe and his sawmill. Today I've included a photo of him feeding a log into the blade. (We were running the mill again last Saturday, and this time I brought my camera.) Joe has to be the most mechanically inclined guy I've ever known. If I had lived next to him as a kid, I would have been hanging out at his house all the time fascinated by all his cool stuff.

(keep scrolling down to see the photo...)



Back in those days, mechanically inclined people were considered prime candidates for careers in engineering. Concepts learned working with chemistry sets and Erector Sets (I'm a big fan of A.C. Gilbert) probably drove many a boy and probably a few girls into engineering as a profession back in the '50s and '60s.

So where are these mechanical skills grown/tried/improved now? If a kid wants to learn about computers, he or she can go buy everything at Fry's or any number of online sources. There is little, if any, reason to make something from scratch. Who wants to work on a car engine when there's X-Box and Play Station?

What skills will tomorrow's "automation professional" need? Are they essentially computer skills? Is the ability to configure an Ethernet switch more important than the ability to seal a threaded pipe joint? Obviously the answer is that we need all types of abilities, but I can't help but think computer/engineering skills in a vacuum are missing a very important "mechanical" element that can't easily be replaced.

Posted by Peter Welander on October 12, 2007 | Comments (0)