The Journey and Destinations of Engineering
West Virginia Institute of Technology
April 8, 2003
Rick Priory
Chairman and CEO
Duke Energy
It is a pleasure to be with you today. As an alumnus of West Virginia University Institute of Technology, and as a former professor of engineering, I feel very much at home.
More than 35 years ago, I called the top floor of what was then the “new dorm” on campus home. I punched the clock there as dorm counselor and combined my counselor earnings with savings, student loans and summer work to fund my stay at West Virginia Tech.
My senior year, I brought my bride Joan to share the struggle and the joy. We lived in a railroad apartment across the river in Smithers. Joan has vivid memories (I don’t know how fond!) of coal cars being moved in the rail yard across the street from our apartment at all hours of the day and night.
Joan rode the bus to Charleston every day to work, and supported us during that final year. More than once, I was so focused on my studies that I’d forget to pick her up at the bus stop out on Route 60. Engineering is a great discipline for developing focus. Wives are great at teaching you to focus on more than one thing at a time!
After graduating from Tech in 1969, I accepted my first job with Union Carbide in Charleston. I spent a couple of years there and found it to be a great company and a good place to build our future.
Joan was also focusing on our future. She took the initiative and applied to Princeton University graduate school on my behalf. To my surprise, I learned that Princeton was investigating my background! In spite of that, they offered me a full scholarship to join them as an “academic slave.”
Fortunately, the faculty here had equipped me with a solid undergraduate education, a strong work ethic - and a love for engineering that has taken me from blueprint rooms to board rooms - and to the company I am now honored to lead, Duke Energy.
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Engineering leads to wonderful destinations, I can attest to that.
- At Duke Energy, our engineers have built power plants from Texas to Trinidad to Indonesia. (We’re building the 1,240-megawatt Hanging Rock Energy Facility just over the state line in Lawrence County, Ohio.)
- We’ve built power lines across the Andes and to a massive gold mine more than 12,000 feet above sea level on the island of Iran Jaya in Indonesia.
- We’ve laid miles of natural gas pipeline across North America, in the Australian outback and beneath the Boston Harbor.
- We’ve helped address the challenge of spent nuclear fuel in the Ukraine and built a hydroelectric cavern blasted from solid granite - and big enough to hold a 32-story building.
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Engineers have always moved toward grand destinations. And as you prepare to embark upon your own journeys, I’d like to share some stories of remarkable journeys in your chosen field - and mine.
I’ll begin in North Carolina, since that has been my home since leaving West Virginia and Princeton. The story’s climax took place on the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk.
It’s the story of first flight, of inspired engineering and of aeronautical perseverance. It’s a story of creativity, design and dreams taking wing. As you’ve guessed by now, it’s the story of Orville and Wilbur Wright.
The Wright brothers aren’t native Carolinians, though we’re proud to claim them as our own. Their hometown was actually in the heartland, in Dayton, Ohio, where they operated a bicycle business. And while the bicycle shop paid the bills, the brothers dreamed of machines that could leave the ground. And so they built wings as well as wheels in their shop.
Their fascination with flight began with a cork and bamboo flying toy, powered by rubber bands. That fascination continued into the late 1890s, when Wilbur and Orville crafted and tested kites and gliders, with the goal of creating an aircraft “capable of sustaining a man.”
Their quest to defy gravity was strong and unyielding. Wilbur described himself as “afflicted with the belief that flight is possible.” Their obsession led them to invent each of the technologies they needed to pursue their dream.
They devised their own wind tunnels to test airfoils. They figured out how to move the vehicle freely, not just across land, but up and down on a cushion of air. They built an elevator to control the pitch of their aircraft as it nosed up and down. They designed their own propellers and built their own lightweight gas-fired engine - which actually weighed 152 pounds!
They methodically - some at the time would have said madly - focused their energy and creativity on the many iterative inventions needed to reach their ultimate, breakthrough goal.
That happened on December 17, 1903, when Orville piloted a shaky 12-second flight. The distance of the flight - 120 feet - was about half the wingspan of a Boeing 747. Nonetheless, the flight changed the world forever.
The airplane revolutionized our world, in war and in peace. It made our world smaller, changing the way we communicate, commute, conduct commerce and govern our countries. It was the first step in “globalization,” a term that those of us in business are batting around quite a bit lately.
I share the story of the Wright brothers because, for me, it articulates the essence of the engineering learning process. I use “engineering learning” rather than education because the Wright brothers were self-taught. They didn’t have the benefit of dedicated instructors, fine curricula, computers and classrooms that you enjoy here at WVU Tech. They learned through trial and error, by literally testing their wings, and by falling - hard and often.
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Here’s another story - with roots right here in West Virginia. Homer Hickam, Jr. grew up in the mining town of Coalwood. As a 14-year-old boy, he was fascinated with rockets. Like the rest of the country, he was intrigued and challenged by the Sputnik launch - and by the early U.S. space efforts underway at Cape Canaveral.
He began building rockets. Broken plastic tubing and gunpowder from cherry bombs left over from the Fourth of July were Homer’s first raw materials. He moved on to aluminum tubing and a mixture of saltpeter, sulphur and charcoal. Joined by a few buddies, he started the Big Creek Missile Agency, named for their high school. The town began referring to the group as the “Rocket Boys,” which would become the title of Homer’s best-selling book - and the basis for the hit movie “October Sky.”
Trials, tests, explosions, failed attempts and destruction to property that included his mother’s rose garden fence and the family water heater - all in the name of adolescent science.
But the lure of the heavens was strong, and the trials continued. An early launch achieved peak altitude of one mile, which the boys calculated by timing the flight and applying principles of trigonometry and Newtonian physics. Fuel of choice became an amalgam of zinc and sulphur, bonded with West Virginia moonshine!
Homer won the gold medal for his efforts at the 1960 National Science Fair. From then on, he continued to pursue his dream until he was helping to send up the big-time rockets as a NASA engineer.
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I’ll turn now from the heavens to earth, and from sons to fathers. Homer Hickam Sr. was a mining superintendent at the Olga Coal Mine in Coalwood. While his son set his sights on exploring space, Homer Sr. was traveling deep underground, doing the hard work that fuels my industry and so many others.
Homer Sr. was an engineer and an innovator in his own right. He also proved to be a hero. We all recall last year’s mining accident in Quecreek, Pennsylvania, where nine miners were trapped.
But you might not know that the rescue cage and the system used to return the miners to safety, sunlight and families was designed by Homer Hickam, Sr. back in 1951. Testing the innovation back then, he traveled 700 feet under ground - and much further in terms of engineering solutions that make a risky business safer.
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The destinations of engineering are indeed grand. But here’s a key point I hope you’ll take away: the journey to get there - to whatever destination your learning and aspiration takes you - is equally grand and fulfilling.
These stories are not only of engineering achievement - they are accounts of the odyssey that engineers embark upon when they take hold of an idea. And as I reflect on their journeys, I am struck by the lessons they continue to teach.
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The first is about passion. Now I know that “passion” and “engineers” are two words that don’t often turn up together in the same sentence, but bear with me. And if passion makes you uncomfortable, substitute fanaticism, unbridled enthusiasm, fervor or zeal.
It all comes down to the almost mathematical alignment of drive and desire that results in world-changing feats of engineering. It’s the ability to apply yourself to a chosen task with such focus and resoluteness that you achieve breathtaking results.
Ten years following his pioneering 12-second journey, Orville Wright conceded that “I look with amazement upon our audacity in attempting flights with a new and untried machine.”
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The second lesson I propose to you is perseverance. The stick-to-it attitude that transports us from the hypothetical to the practical - allowing a young rocket boy to see beyond the fizzle of bum launches to the ultimate flare of success.
We need to allow ourselves time to stare into a blue sky, surrendering to great thought and contemplation. But we also need to do the calculations, the experiments, the tests and the trials - many times over - that move those ideas to fruition.
When you look at our scientific and technical leaders, you quickly recognize that dogged persistence is a common thread.
Robert Goddard was the physicist who launched the space age with a 10-foot rocket in a New England cabbage field. His belief in rocketry as a viable technology was met with great cynicism and dismissal.
In 1920, the New York Times soundly panned a thesis by Goddard entitled “A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes.” Professor Goddard, the Times wrote, clearly lacked “the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.” He persevered—and later proved an essential theory: that rocket engines can create thrust in a vacuum.
That theory was employed 40 years later by Homer Hickam and legions of other space pioneers who did indeed achieve “extreme altitudes.”
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The third lesson I bring to you today is practice, and by that I mean the practical learning that is taking place in your university and in our workplace.
Theory is well and good, but we need engineers with a depth of knowledge and capability that comes only with field experience. Enrico Fermi’s atomic laboratory was a Chicago squash field. The Wright brothers did their learning in a back room of a bicycle shop and on the dunes of the Carolina coast. They kept learning—well beyond that first flight. Engineers today need to continue that learning path as well, long after you’ve received your degree and P.E. registration.
There’s an apt saying that “Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, and the lesson afterward.” Experience is one of those pass or fail courses that is prerequisite to the working world.
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Keeping pace is another theme I’ll put before you. Much has changed in the field of engineering over the course of my career. And knowing the rules and rate of acceleration, I expect that much more will change over the course of your careers.
None of us assumes that the preparation we used to produce engineers for professions in the 20th century will suffice in the 21st. The fundamental principles may be sound, but the way we work is profoundly changed. Technical innovation, the explosion of information technology, the sharp decline in defense work - long considered a national academy of engineering innovation - all are shifts that affect the way we gain and apply engineering knowledge.
Many before me have addressed the need for quality engineering education. And since you’ve heard the arguments and I trust that you are already receiving a fine quality education here at Tech, let me share some thoughts on the quantity of that education.
Consider this: an attorney’s professional preparation is seven years. A physician undergoes at least eight years of training. An engineer completes his or her course work in just four years. Building schools, bridges, power plants, road and aircraft certainly carries with it enormous societal responsibility. We must give engineering its due.
At the risk of getting roundly rebuked by those of you anxiously awaiting the end of your studies - I would argue that engineering preparation shouldn’t end at four, 10 or even 20 years. It’s a lifelong process.
At Duke Energy, we encourage engineers to take responsibility for their own careers. They need to identify, seek out and master the skills and information they need to keep pace. Their continuing education shouldn’t be limited to the minimal courses required by P.E. re-certification. It should be ongoing, substantive and self-directed.
When I graduated from West Virginia Tech, a firm grounding in engineering was ample ticket. Today, the price of admission is higher. At Duke Energy, we’re seeing a growing need for engineers whose range exceeds traditional boundaries.
Engineers in our company need to be as comfortable with a balance sheet, in the boardroom and at international deal-making as they were at yesterday’s drafting table. An engineering degree paired with an MBA is a dynamite combination that is serving us well, and we’re also looking for engineers with backgrounds in economics, environmental science and international business. We need well-rounded engineers who can follow dual tracks and bring valuable perspective to the workplace.
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And last, but by no means least, integrity. As engineers we know what makes structures, compounds or processes strong - or weak. In business - and in life - integrity is the foundation and fusing principle that supports all else.
I have watched businesses that seemed to have it all—the best balance sheet, the brightest stars, the smartest portfolio - fail beyond redemption when integrity was compromised. And I’ve seen talented men and women douse bright and promising careers when their character couldn’t withstand the pressure of principled decision-making. When that foundation fails, careers and companies topple. We’ve seen far too much of that over the past couple of years, and I worry about what students like you must be thinking about the current state of business.
At some point in your professional life, your integrity will be tested. Your principles will be challenged. Do what’s right. Be guided by your education here at West Virginia Tech and by your upbringing back home. As I tell our folks at Duke, stay clear of the gray zone.
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I’ve told you some stories of boundary-breaking engineers. And I’ve shared some of my lessons on a discipline that has taken me on a tremendous journey that began right here in Montgomery.
Engineering is a noble profession. As I look back at the events and achievements of the last century, I am struck by the fact that a majority are engineering and scientific in nature:
- The first radio signal broadcast in 1901
- The inaugural flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903
- Introduction of the Model T Ford in 1908
- The Theory of Relativity in 1916
- The first nuclear chain reaction in 1942
- The first electronic computer in 1946
- The Internet in 1969 (It really wasn’t Al Gore!)
- Completion of the Hubble telescope in 1990
- Mapping of the human genome in 2001
The list goes on. Put in a century’s context, engineering ranks right up there, alongside World Wars, the Civil Rights Movement and Elvis Presley as a defining force in our world’s history.
It will define the future as well. You each have the chance to usher in new, unimaginable innovation - to defy gravity, test boundaries, and create new journeys of your own.
This is a remarkable time to be in business. As vexing as it can be, I truly believe that we’re living history right now. That 10 or 20 years from now, we’ll look upon this time - your time—as pivotal and defining. New Orvilles, Wilburs, Enricos and Homers will emerge and make their mark on the world. And in 30 or 40 years, someone will stand where I do today and tell your stories - the engineering pioneers of West Virginia Tech.
Thank you for your time, and I wish you all safe and successful passage as you pilot your own amazing flying machines.
Thank you.
