Name a celebrity engineer

[ratitude]

Q: What's the difference between a doctor and an engineer?

A: When a doctor makes a mistake he takes out one at a time. When an engineer makes a mistake we scatter bodies across the hillside and make the 6:00 news.

I have no desire to be famous.

[theperfessor]

Mechanical engineers build weapons; Civil engineers build targets...

[ratitude]

Amen!

[ChuckJaxFL]

Jeri Ellisworth. Limor Freid.

When the whole Mylie Cyrus tweaking thing was in the news, I sat down with my girl and watched a bunch of Jeri Ellsworth videos.

[nodda duma]

Engineers are famous (or well-known) within their trade. In my trade the famous engineers are folks like Rudolph Kingslake, Dennis Taylor, Warren Smith, etc.

Btw here's a list of famous engineers:

http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Stu/hnaseer/interest.htm

[dagger dog]

Charles Kettering, gave us the use of electric starters for our automobiles with his over running clutch mechanism, Zora Duntov, had a major role in GM's small block V8 engine.

[redneckdan]

Yeah, I agree, Bill. Engineers I have known, (and I were one) wanted to solve problems, and be left alone to do that. I dunno about you, but I still go to sleep running machines in my head, and often dream mechanism in the morning. My old Dad said "It's a fascinating profession, but you'll never have cocktail party conversation". So true - unless I've cornered another engineer, their eyes glaze over in about 30 seconds.

Yup. That's what is so great about going to trade shows and training courses. I get to mingle with folks who think like I do and understand what I am talking about.

That and given a little 'liquid engineering' all sorts of things get created. Like launching shaved ice balls off the roof of the Dallas Fairmont with a CO2 powder tater cannon...

[N4AUD]

Walter Houston, who played the old man in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" was a civil engineer as well as an actor.

[jaysouth]

One time when I was hard up for a job, I accepted a position in a large professional engineering firm. I lasted a year as controller and director of administration. The designers and designer/draftsment were good to work for, but the MEs, CEs, and EEs in higher management positions were prone to solve every problem with drawings and specs. That never worked too well when dealing with bankers, OSHA, Dept of Labor, IRS and other outsiders who made their own rules that had the force of law and regulation. Try engineering logic on the IRS.

After a year, a nice little business came up for sale and I left the engineers to the problems of their own making.

However, the OP has a good point. Ditto for good teachers. Of all the names thrown out here, which one had an engineering degree from a university?

My point is that inquisitive tinkerers produce some pretty remarkable ideas and products without having their creativity stiffled by professors and academic experience.

[OeldeWolf]

I remember a book I read while at BYU. It was about a bridge designer (engineer), who had a girlfriend with a problem. He helped out her, and most every woman since. His last name was Brassiere. I understand there might be some lack of clarity in who was actually the first to design this device, though. But the book I read also credited him with designing a specific type of bridge truss, as well.

[2wheelDuke]

Pierre Terblanche

[w0fms]

This thread is OK because it's getting the engineers out of the woodwork and making them admit they are Engineers! This isn't easy to do. And OMG, educated people who like guns! OMG.. even some with Master's degrees!

I'm one of those rare extroverted engineers! The personality type tests confirm this.

This means, of course, as an extroverted engineer that I look at OTHER PEOPLES shoes when I talk with them!

But I'm good as an engineer. So no management upwards ability for me, despite that when I earned my MBA (for fun mostly, hey, the company paid for it!) I had a 3.95 GPA and was top of my class! Nope..

The sad fact is that in the Obama world, the low performing technically (and some times in management, too.) engineers become management... because if they were good technically they not become management. I don't think it was always like that, and when you say Iacocca, for example, he sure did appreciate the good technical skilled engineers back in those days. Not so much any more. Just reform immigration, you know, by printing up more H-1B's... go pound sand, Dilbert. The problem is that there is no longer a "technical' path to the pay scale of management in engineering in most American companies...

It'll bite them. Once Doctors, Lawyers and Engineers are outsourced.. why bother with management? Seriously.. just skip the involvement of the American companies all together. Look at Schwinn bicycles and Trek bicycles as an example of outsourcing everything except management...

I'm a BSEE from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 1992... Work as a "software engineer".

The Civils make targets, the ME's make the weapons, the EE's make the control, guidance and (especially in my case) communications systems.

It's been a long time since I told that joke or the "ceement" class jokes too for the civils...

[mpbarry1]

Conde McCullough

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conde_McCullough

[popper]

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Wife has a nephew that went there in the 80's. Kind of a strange bird but nice.
Ducati get the valve system from Mercedes, who got it from IIRC Talbot or Peugeot.

[DRNurse1]

Chris Kraft.

Werner Von Braun.

George Westinghouse.

Bill Boeing.

Gear

Gear were you adding your name to the list?

I thought the hat thing put you far above the pop-star status you should have your own category.

[Garyshome]

Casey Jones!

[DRNurse1]

This thread is OK because it's getting the engineers out of the woodwork and making them admit they are Engineers! This isn't easy to do. And OMG, educated people who like guns! OMG.. even some with Master's degrees!

I'm one of those rare extroverted engineers! The personality type tests confirm this.

This means, of course, as an extroverted engineer that I look at OTHER PEOPLES shoes when I talk with them!

But I'm good as an engineer. So no management upwards ability for me, despite that when I earned my MBA (for fun mostly, hey, the company paid for it!) I had a 3.95 GPA and was top of my class! Nope..

The sad fact is that in the Obama world, the low performing technically (and some times in management, too.) engineers become management... because if they were good technically they not become management. I don't think it was always like that, and when you say Iacocca, for example, he sure did appreciate the good technical skilled engineers back in those days. Not so much any more. Just reform immigration, you know, by printing up more H-1B's... go pound sand, Dilbert. The problem is that there is no longer a "technical' path to the pay scale of management in engineering in most American companies...

It'll bite them. Once Doctors, Lawyers and Engineers are outsourced.. why bother with management? Seriously.. just skip the involvement of the American companies all together. Look at Schwinn bicycles and Trek bicycles as an example of outsourcing everything except management...

I'm a BSEE from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 1992... Work as a "software engineer".

The Civils make targets, the ME's make the weapons, the EE's make the control, guidance and (especially in my case) communications systems.

It's been a long time since I told that joke or the "ceement" class jokes too for the civils...

Good summary, but the high school version: Those who can, do. Those who can not do, teach. Those who can not teach, teach gym. Those who cannot teach gym, administrate.

Our vice, principle, former gym teacher, former history teacher..... [:rant on] and the parade of BHO failed advisors from Hillary (not the mountain climbing one, thought she claims relations), to Sebelius, to Holder.....the list seems endless [/:rant off]

Sorry, the high school thing has been repeated in nearly every business adventure I encounter. What is up with that?

[coblake]

Gustave Eiffel

[DRNurse1]

Engineers are famous (or well-known) within their trade. In my trade the famous engineers are folks like Rudolph Kingslake, Dennis Taylor, Warren Smith, etc.

Btw here's a list of famous engineers:

http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Stu/hnaseer/interest.htm

Thank you for that post. I recognized a quite few names an the list, and happily more that were alive than dead. It interests me that many engineers I know are pursuing other endeavors, a concerning turn of events.

I once heard that a good manager knew a bit about what the engineers were up to so that the right engineers could be brought together. Sort of a synergistic meeting coordinator. Best definition of a manager I have run across, just wish I could remember who said it.

[cdet69]

John Roebling