such as iAU2M8.09, a student-oriented automation-education event incorporated into ISA EXPO 2009, which took place in October. The ISA has also partnered with the Automation Federation to launch www.automationiscool.org to publicize positive stories associated with automation and a career in the field.

“That is a huge part of the problem. No one has ever told that story before. There’s not a kid out there who even knows what an automation engineer does. The community has a responsibility to tell the good stories that are out there.”

Gouhin would also like to see Universities offer courses more focused toward  producing automation professionals. “Companies need automation professionals. What they’ve got to do today is take the closest thing they can get and then take the next five to seven years training them to be an automation engineer. We want to identify the need for an automation technology degree program and get universities to start pumping those graduates out so they can hit the ground running. They’ll still need training, but it won’t take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

However, before they want to be automation engineers there is still the challenge of attracting them to the field.

“What do we have that’s going to generate a fire in the belly of these kids?” wonders Gouhin’s colleague, ISA President and Indiana State University professor Gerald Cockrell, one of the aforementioned baby boomers drawn into engineering by the space race. “Today we have the green revolution, but I don’t think that it’s a strong enough hook.”

Cockrell points out the glamour being associated with some professions and how media attention drives interest. “Look at crime scene investigation: you see gobs of these shows on TV, and at our school, that has become one of the most in-demand programs. So many young folks see engineering—see technology—as a tool. They don’t care how their cell phone works or what might be done to make it better. They don’t see it as something exciting that they might want to make a career of. Once you make that connection, they will come back.”

Arami Rosales is a case in point. She is living, breathing evidence of the success of programs like FIRST, Project Lead the Way and their brethren. “I’m completely in love with the idea of being in FIRST,” she says. “FIRST is giving me building blocks that will help me be more successful in engineering later on.”

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