Engineering Education and Practice for the Global Community

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Engineering Education and Practice for the Global
Community

• Preparing Engineers for a Global Workplace
  CDMs Experience
• Mary Leslie
• CDM University
• March 17,2006

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Who is CDM?

• Employee-owned consulting, engineering,
  construction and operations firm founded in 1947
  in Boston
• 3,500 employees 350 in 26 global offices - 30 US
  citizens, the rest locals
• First international project in 1960

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Preparing Engineers for a Global Workplace

• Providing opportunities to work overseas on
  international projects
• Networking with international staff
• Learning to work overseas via OJT
• Minimal training prior to overseas assignments
• Career paths and development planning

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Preparing Engineers for a Global Workplace
(Continued)

• Corporate support for professional association
  memberships and conferences papers,
  presentations, committees and boards globally
• Annual technical papers awards 5K award for
  best papers
• Career development/training by pre-eminent CDM
  experts through CDM University
• Recruiting diverse candidates from 30 US schools
  including WPI!!
• Providing continuing education opportunities to
  meet professional license requirements

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CDM University

• CDMs corporate university founded in 1996
• Professional training staff
• Provides/supports continuing education/training
  in all CDM offices globally all delivery methods
• LMS accessible globally via internet
• Training on tools and skills, in English only

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Training Lessons Learned

• Overseas local staff are more aggressive about
  accessing online training of all kinds even on
  their own time
• Difficult and expensive to get visas to bring
  people to US for work or training train overseas
  or do virtual training, online or blended
  approach

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Global Engineering A two-way Street?

• US no longer produces enough engineering grads to
  meet US demand
• 100 times more international engineering students
  in US than vice versa many are fluent in
  English.
• Technology transfer may be two way some foreign
  countries catching up fast
• Overseas offices predominately local staff
  senior CDM engineers/project managers

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Typical Project

• PRASA Program Management Contract
• - Formed CDM Caribbean
• - Detailed design work must be performed in PR
  largely by local engineering resources
• - Must be registered PE in PR
• - Robust program for interns and coops from 4
  local PR universities required
• -Technology Transfer