Letter 22 Engineering Your Retirement
Dear Natasha and Nick,
How is life treating you these days? For me, it sometimes seems to ebb and flow like a river. In any case, I’d like to tackle a subject in this letter that you may wish to consider seriously even right now—retirement! There’s some evidence I remember reading somewhere (although I don’t have the details at the moment) that people with no plan for active life during retirement don’t do particularly well emotionally, mentally, or physically. Sometimes they can tend to deteriorate rather quickly.
And so, perhaps you already have notions about taking up a new hobby, learning a new language, traveling the world, volunteering with a charity, or just spending more time with family and friends; that’s great! On the other hand, maybe you’re very busy pursuing your career right now as an engineer and don’t feel you have the time or energy or interest to start planning too far down the line for life after engineering; that’s totally understandable!
Nevertheless, it might be beneficial just to be aware of what active engagement in science and technology can look like after formally retiring from engineering work. Some ideas I want to share, maybe things that you’re already doing, so they won’t be left to your retirement years. But, conversely, the extra time you’ll have during retirement may give you a chance to pursue some of these options for the first time in your life. In any case, here are some ideas to consider plus a few real-world stories, if you’re interested in something different than the standard retirement lifestyle (see Figure 22.1).
Figure 22.1 Retired engineers can still be active in science and technology.
Active Engineering Society Member
You can be an official volunteer member of, and get actively involved with, a professional engineering society on local, regional, national, and international levels. The main function of these societies is to provide official certifications and accountability to their members, who are then recognized as practicing engineers by the government. But, they also create policies and standards for the engineering profession in general, have scholarship programs for engineering students, organize local activities for professional and student chapters, raise awareness among the public about the engineering profession, and so forth. There are plenty of ways to get involved.
Adjunct or Emeritus Professor
You can apply to a university engineering department to formally become a volunteer Adjunct Professor, which will give you an opportunity to supervise the thesis research projects of undergraduate and graduate students. You can then even publish articles about that research in peer-reviewed engineering and science journals. If you’re already an engineering Professor, then consider staying on with an Emeritus status, which will provide the same opportunity to supervise and publish.
Ambassador-at-Large
You can volunteer as an engineering education ambassador for a university that will send you into high schools to speak about the engineering profession to inspire and recruit potential students. Similarly, some engineering firms could appoint you on a paid or unpaid part-time basis to be their ambassador among university students to recruit potential employees, as well as among the universities themselves to forge potential university/industry partnerships.
Board Member
You can be a volunteer board member of a charitable organization that promotes the legacy of an eminent scientist or engineer, lobbies the government to make policy changes for or against the use of certain technologies, etc., or, if you can’t find a charity that’s interesting, why not start one? Similarly, you can become a board member of an engineering firm that helps keep their organization economically efficient, environmentally friendly, and technologically productive. Almost always, these positions are unpaid, but it gives you a chance to shape the future, continue to build your resumé, and make potentially important personal contacts that could open up other doors of opportunity for you.
Engineer-at-Large
You can be an unpaid volunteer who helps your family, friends, charities, etc., to personally design, build, inspect, repair, or dispose of various household appliances or other devices, equipment, structures, toxic materials, and waste products. Most people are not very technically savvy and, once they find out you’re a practicing or retired engineer, they are extremely grateful to receive your help in solving practical technological problems that to them seem insurmountable. And so, you can become an occasional engineer-at-large in your own social sphere of influence.
Freelance Consultant
You can start a small part-time engineering consultancy firm with just one employee—you! Certainly, you’d have to tap into your personal or professional network of contacts, advertise on the internet, place advertisements in engineering publications, etc., to get the word out about your services. This can bring in some needed supplemental income through consultation fees, which can be quite lucrative depending on the standard payment rates in your field.
Mentor-at-Large
You can make yourself available to communicate or meet informally with student engineers or working engineers to provide them with career advice and feedback. Perhaps these engineers in need of mentoring are people from your own family, friends that you know, friends of friends, or colleagues from your last workplace. You don’t necessarily have to advertise yourself publicly as a mentor to engineers, but you can just be open to mentoring opportunities that arise spontaneously.
Scholarship Benefactor
You can personally donate or raise funds to establish an engineering scholarship fund at a university that would be awarded yearly to the most deserving engineering student. The scholarship could be based on course grades achieved by the student, a contest judged for the best speech or essay by a student, or some other criterion. Many students struggle with finances to pay for good engineering education, so they rely on loans from family and friends, part-time jobs, etc., so creating a scholarship could be your way to give the next generation of engineers a chance to get started.
Technology Fair Participant
You can volunteer to be an organizer, judge, and/or keynote speaker for science and technology fairs and contests in which high school and university students display their knowledge, skill, and inventions. This will give you a chance to pass on some of your practical wisdom to the next generation and inspire them with a grander vision of how an engineer can contribute to society.
Web Show Host
You can start, produce, and host your own internet show on science and technology. It can be broadcast live or pre-recorded as an audio podcast or online video. With a minimal financial investment in some good quality software and equipment, this can all be done from the comfort of your own home. You can interview student engineers about their education and working engineers about their careers. You can answer questions sent to you by email or asked by live listeners and viewers. You can provide updates on the latest scientific and technological developments. You can do reviews of books and other resources. You can give practical tips and tricks about technical matters. You can share practical lessons you learned from your own engineering career. Although you can do this just as a fun hobby, it can also help mentor the next generation of engineers and even provide you with some financial income as a registered home business.
Writer or Author
You can write a personal online technology blog or even articles for newspapers and magazines on the latest technology news. You can write articles that provide state-of-the-art technical reviews on particular topics in your engineering field that can potentially be published in peer-reviewed engineering and science journals; this is a non-paid volunteer activity. If you’re a little more ambitious, you could take on the daunting task of authoring a book on engineering, whether it is a university level textbook, a technical manual useful for industry, a journalistic-type book that tells the story of how a major engineering project was achieved, a “my life in engineering” autobiography, and so on; this, of course, could supply you with some added income through book royalties.
Your Final Contribution
You can state in your last will and testament that, after you leave this mortal existence, you want to donate some money to an engineering-related charity or project, an engineering scholarship or program at the university, an engineering firm, an up-and-coming engineer, and so on. Depending on your philosophical or religious views, you could consider donating your body to science, so that various scientists and biomedical engineers can conduct experiments that lead to a better understanding of the human body and that result in new technologies that improve healthcare.
A Few Shining Examples
I’d like to tell you briefly about a few officially retired engineers who are wonderful models of what I’m talking about.
One of my friends is a retired engineer, but he’s made himself available as an engineer-at-large. He does this by sometimes visiting and working on his son’s farm as an unpaid volunteer. He helps install, inspect, and repair various pieces of electrical and mechanical equipment. On one occasion, my friend called me by telephone to discuss some technical questions he had about a certain device. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help to him, since I wasn’t familiar with that particular apparatus. To some degree, my friend’s efforts are not particularly surprising, since he cares about his son. Yet, the fact that he does this kind of work at all—rather than avoiding it because he’s officially retired from engineering—is a testament to both his technical competence and moral character. And I admire him for it.
There’s another retired engineer whom I met several times at various engineering events. He was a very active member of his professional engineering society (PES). This is the PES that gave him his official certifications and designations to work as a legally recognized professional engineer. During the time I knew him, he had several roles in his PES’s local chapter. For instance, he was the secretary who kept track of nominations and volunteers for committee positions. He also made verbal announcements and gave updates at the monthly meetings that were open to members and inquirers. And he was on the professional review committee that interviewed and assessed those who applied for membership in the PES.
Another exemplar of active retirement is the visionary electro-mechanical engineer Nikola Tesla (1856–1943). In 1919, at the age of 63, he wrote a series of 6 autobiographical articles titled “My Inventions” for the magazine Electrical Experimenter, which also had Tesla’s image on the cover. He described his early childhood, his first efforts at invention, his high school and polytechnic education in science and engineering, and his invention of some of his most famous electromechanical devices, like the alternating current (AC) induction motor, the Tesla Coil, and the ill-fated Tesla Tower. Although he was well past his creative peak when he wrote these articles, Tesla’s name was still widely known in society at large. And so, the magazine editor hoped that Tesla’s reputation could potentially sell magazines and even influence the next generation of scientists and engineers. The articles were eventually compiled into a book called My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla, which has been made available by various publishers over the years. Tesla kept himself occupied with engineering well into old age until his death. He continued to propose innovative devices to governments. He remained an official technical consultant with Westinghouse. He held yearly birthday dinners for the media to whom he would announce his latest technological ideas. And he still inspires many people today.
So, What’s the “Take Home” Message of This Letter?
The main point I want to stress here is that your eventual retirement as an engineer does not necessarily mean that you can no longer have any meaningful involvement in science and technology. This involvement could be on a small personal level or a larger societal level. In your career, you will have accumulated experience, information, skill, and wisdom that you can pass on to the next builders of civilization. And, in the process, you can have fun doing it!
Peace and prosperity,
R.Z.