IMT Career Journal was on the scene for exclusive interviews and coverage. Ted Bauer, program manager of workforce development programs for the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP), spoke about how active collaboration, formed by employer participants, can help fill the worker talent pipeline. See IMT Career Journal’s video interview with Bauer.

At a session called Meeting the Demand Side Need for Skills, One College’s Perspective, Steven H. Kitchin, (above) the vice president of corporate education and training at the New England Institute of Technology, spoke about top challenges that manufacturers are facing and strategies to recruit and retain employees. Kitchin speaks with IMT Journal’s Beth Goodbaum.

Jeremy Bout, the host and producer of the Edge Factor Show, presented a screening of Metal & Flesh, a short film which depicts how manufacturing helped Mike Schultz, a Snowcross world champion who designed his own prosthetic leg. Bout presented his film at the EASTEC Dream It Do It Manufacturing Student Challenge, and spoke exclusively with IMT Career Journal’s Beth Goodbaum about how to get students more involved with STEM through the use of media, such as his Edge Factor videos.

Attracting women to manufacturing was another trending topic at EASTEC. Dr. Karen Woscyzna-Birch, the executive director of the Regional Center for Next Generation Manufacturing (RCNGM) at the Connecticut College of Technology, spoke about the importance of getting students involved with STEM and the importance of manufacturing certifications. IMT Career Journal’s Beth Goodbaum interviews her.

Check back for more EASTEC coverage on IMT Career Journal.

IMT Career Journal’s lead reporter Beth Goodbaum speaks to Ted Bauer about his role as a program manager of workforce development programs at the Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MassMEP). Bauer talks about how to solve the manufacturing workforce skills gap. For more on MassMEP, visit http://www.massmep.org.

And stay tuned for more coverage on IMT Career Journal at http://www.thomasnet.com/journals/career.

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Like many other businesses, start-ups are hiring, but executives indicate that the most challenging part of filling positions is finding candidates with the right skills, according to a new study by Silicon Valley Bank. A significant amount of executives polled are looking for workers with science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills.

Although start-ups are a critical contributor of new job creation and business growth in the U.S., they are struggling to find qualified talent to help them succeed. While 87 percent of start-ups will hire new employees in 2013 (versus 83 percent last year), nine out of 10 say that they are faced with the top challenge of finding workers, according to the most recent Startup Outlook Survey, which polled both U.S. and U.K. execs.

The start-ups most likely to hire this year are in the software, hardware, and cleantech sectors. Although all sectors are looking for employees with STEM skill sets, hardware execs are the most focused on recruiting such talent. The Silicon Valley Bank survey also indicated that STEM-capable workers are the most critical for early-stage companies.

The Skills that Start-up Execs Value the Most

While 17 percent of the start-up execs surveyed say that management, marketing, and other non-STEM skills are the most critical to their business, far more, 40 percent, say that STEM skills are the most critical. Forty-two percent of execs said that both skill sets are critical.

“There is a lot of opportunity to put people to work at start-ups, which is particularly welcome news since jobs in general are recovering slowly. Investments in STEM education and policies that support tech businesses will help people take advantage of jobs, and benefit economic growth overall,” said Greg Becker, president and CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, in a statement.

Other than finding recruits with the right skills, start-up execs cite the cost of salaries and benefits and intense competition as the most challenging aspects of finding and retaining talent.

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Which communication skill is most important: listening, writing, or speaking? Given the nearly non-stop use of email and social media in every aspect of your life you might respond immediately with “written communications.” Given a few more moments to think about it, you might choose “spoken communications” over writing. You spend a lot of time engaged in conversations on your mobile or face-to-face. But in both cases you’re off the mark. While writing and speaking effectively are important skills to employ daily in your life, they aren’t the most important when it comes to communicating. That spot is reserved for listening.

The importance of listening is likely something you’ve heard before. If it wasn’t our parents scolding us for not listening, then it was Epictetus’ famous quote reminding us, “Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could hear twice as much as we speak.” Numerous studies have highlighted the importance of communication in the average persons life, pointing out that most people spend up to 80 percent of their waking hours involved in some method of communication. This is further broken down to about 25 percent writing and reading, 30 percent speaking, and 45 percent listening. Not surprisingly, numerous studies also show that we are horrible listeners.  Not good.

The reasons for our poor grasp of the most important communication skill is that it’s hard.  Not accounting for the fact that we think faster than someone else can speak, we have the added challenges of multi-tasking, calling the subject matter “boring”, or listening only for facts versus the entire content or ‘reading’ the speakers body language.  Overcoming this challenge is difficult, in fact it’s a task I still work on continuously.  I find that without mental preparation before a scheduled meeting or telephone call, or the conscious thought to concentrate on what I’m hearing, it’s nearly impossible for me to leave an engagement with tangibles.  My guess is that you often face the same situation.

Building a capability and capacity to truly listen is an art and it’s essential if you have aspirations of success. The quality of our relationships, ability for solving problems; for generating business; for overcoming difficulties; or for initiating new opportunities all require high fidelity listening skills. Add to this any communications that’s cross-cultural and the need for Herculean listening skills is amplified. Those who have mastered the art of listening:

Get to the root cause of problems faster.  They understand that listening to a client, boss, colleague is the way to truly identify a problem. Once the problem is clearly identified, then the process of developing solutions can begin.

Understand that it’s a compliment to whomever they’re with.  No one ever complements another for talking over them. We know we’ve been in a conversation with someone who has mastered the art of listening because we leave the conversation with a feeling of being appreciated. An accomplished listener does that: she appreciates what the other person has to say; even if she doesn’t agree with it.

Don’t anticipate what they will hear nor allow preconceived notions.  Listening involves capturing another human’s ideas, thoughts, or logic. You can’t do this effectively if you enter an engagement with ideas established of what you’ll hear. How many times have you formed opinions before a conversation, only to leave the conversation either confused or upended by the results? If you have, it’s because you wrote the script in your mind before the discussion and the script you wrote was wrong.

Communication skills are absolutely essential to our existence and they are the foundation for our success. If your skills are lacking, begin first by focusing on your listening skills. Strengthen these and you’ll be in a very solid position.

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”  –Abraham Lincoln

Christian Knutson, P.E., PMP, is a leader, civil engineer, and author. He’s an accomplished professional specializing in A/E/C work internationally and author of The Engineer Leader, a recognized blog on leadership and life success for engineers and professionals. 

This article was originally published on Engineering.com and is republished in its entirety with permission. For more stories like this, visit Engineering.com.

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Last month, President Barack Obama hosted 100 student innovators from more than 40 states for the third annual White House Science Fair, celebrating student achievements in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. This year’s group of youths included app coders, algae growers, video game designers, city planners, roboticists, and rocket scientists.

After touring their exhibits, Obama congratulated the students on their impressive accomplishments and announced a number of new steps to advance his administration’s Educate to Innovate campaign to motivate more young people to excel in STEM subjects.

Among the new initiatives was the launch of more than 1,000 summer learning events, planned as part of a summer-long campaign “to help young people embrace the maker spirit and learn career-building STEM skills.”

Engaging and inspiring young people to pursue opportunities in STEM fields early is widely considered by experts as an important step in meeting the nation’s future innovation needs. What students learn outside the classroom can make just as large an impression as formal learning time.

That is why the newly announced learning events, along with STEM-centric summer camps and similar programs for youths, provide opportunities for STEM inspiration. Directories created by the Engineering Education Service Center and FindEngineeringSchools.org provide information on STEM summer camps.

“Hands-on science and engineering programs, competitions, and camps are wonderful introductions to STEM for students even as young as elementary grade,” Melissa Carl, a manager of government relations for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, said in a recent Q&A with IMT Career Journal. “Getting early experience, like the hands-on robotics or science camps and competitions, can motivate young people, especially girls and underrepresented minorities, to know their strengths, take the math and science courses that will advance their goals, and realize how much engineering can offer them.”

In the past, summer camp meant either time in the wilderness or on a sports field. Today, there are educational camps with themes from space exploration and aviation to robotics and invention. Most STEM-centric camps share some common goals:

• Entice young people to think like scientists and engineers
• Provide a fun, creative, hands-on learning experience
• Teach youth to experiment and overcome obstacles
• Build self-esteem and confidence
• Ultimately inspire youth to pursue careers in STEM fields.

“Summer camps are an effective way to pique the interest of young students in STEM,” according to John Lock, former CEO of Project Lead The Way (PLTW), a nonprofit provider of STEM curricular programs to middle schools and high schools across the U.S. “The younger they get hooked, the more likely they will stick with it during high school and college, which will help prepare them for success in today’s 21st century global economy.”

STEM Summer Camps Fill the Country

The U.S. Space and Rocket Center’s Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala., is one of the premier STEM educational programs in the U.S. But there are hundreds of programs that aim to engage youth in STEM knowledge and skills throughout the nation. Some of them are on a national level and others are locally based. Below is a small selection of STEM-related summer camps, ranging from those for pre-school children to those for high school students.

ASM Materials Camp

Utilizing hands-on learning principles of applied math, chemistry, and physics, the American Society of Materials’ one-week camps for high school students provide real-world experience in understanding the science of materials. Held at college campuses and other locations throughout the U.S., the camps are completely free for accepted participants.

Camp Invention

Hosted at more than 1,200 schools and organizations nationwide each year, and managed and taught by local educators, the National Inventors Hall of Fame’s Camp Invention program inspires children to be curious about their world and prepares them for the future by exploring STEM concepts via hands-on, creative problem-solving activities.

ExxonMobil Bernard Harris Summer Science Camps

Mainly targeting traditionally under-served and under-represented middle school students, these two-week residential STEM education camps have reached more than 7,000 kids from more than 3,400 schools since 2007. Hosted at colleges across the U.S., the camps offer promising students the opportunity to enhance their proficiency in STEM knowledge and skills, and, like ASM Materials Camp, are free for accepted participants.

Gateway Academy

Part of PLTW, the Gateway Academy summer day camp introduces sixth- to eighth-graders to drafting and graphic design. The program gives students hands-on projects and time with lab equipment in a team environment. Campers use advanced sketching and modeling software, build and race remote-controlled robots, and design, build, and test rockets using 3-D modeling software.

iD Tech Camps

Hosted at more than 60 college campuses nationwide, iD Tech offers week-long summer tech camps for youths aged 7 to 17, as well as intensive two-week teen academies for students aged 13 to 18. Aiming to teach students “usable skills for the future,” the camps offer numerous courses in video game design, programming, 3-D modeling, robotics, graphic arts, web design, digital video editing, and more.

KinderCare Summer Camps

KinderCare offers six different summer programs for pre-school and school-age kids. Its STEM-themed camps cover such topics as architecture, archaeology, and general science. The Science Scouts-themed summer camp teaches young children how the world works through hands-on experiments in life science, earth science, and space science, as well as physics.

Camps Offer Industry Professionals Volunteer Opportunities

Summer camps offer numerous opportunities not just for kids but for adults and STEM industry professionals, as well. Many programs, including those listed above, welcome volunteers (if not summer employment).

Beyond altruism and personal growth, there are multiple professional benefits of volunteerism, including learning or developing new skills such as leadership, communication, networking, and coaching/teaching. Other benefits include apprenticing with other experts, learning more about career options, garnering new professional contacts, and gaining resume points.

“For example, your employer would be interested in the activities that give you a good work-life balance, just as academic institutions are interested in your extracurricular activities,” World Volunteer Web states. “Volunteering reflects and supports a complete picture of you, and gives real examples of your commitment, dedication, and interests.”

In fact, based on a TimeBank survey of leading businesses, 73 percent of employers would recruit a candidate with volunteer experience over one without.

For STEM industry professionals who could be camp or program volunteers, the following are three practical considerations to weigh as a means of getting started:

1. Consider causes that are important to you, and look for a group or program that deals with issues you feel strongly about.
2. Consider what expertise you can share with others, and look for a group or program in which your particular skills can be fully utilized.
3. When you find a group or program that is in line with your interests and expertise, determine whether it offers training or professional development opportunities for its volunteers.

Whether it’s for personal or professional reasons — or both — volunteering your time and expertise this summer to a STEM camp or learning event will certainly help someone or some group. You might just inspire the next great innovator.

If you’re looking for volunteer opportunities, Idealist and VolunteerMatch have leads.

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ACCESS for Immigrant Entrepreneurs

ACCESS, a social and economic services agency, recently graduated the first class of its Immigrant Entrepreneur Development Program, the Associated Press reports. The Dearborn-Michigan based operation, founded in 1972, helps connect immigrant communities including the nation’s largest Arab population with entrepreneurship through its newly formed Growth Center division. The Growth Center matches clients with partner organizations in metro Detroit.

“Historically, employers really embrace an immigrant workforce because they’re dedicated and hardworking,” Sonia Harb, the Center’s senior director told the AP. “When the economy took a dive, it became more and more difficult for immigrants to land those positions. Employers did not then look at immigrants as a priority audience to fill a position. We decided to try and think creatively to increase competitiveness of immigrant job applicants.”

 Competition to help Immigrants THRIVE 

In New York City, Competition THRIVE serves the immigrant community through programs and strategies with the help of New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYEDC), which has partnered with the Lawrence N. Field Center for Entrepreneurship at Baruch College. According to the NYEDC, the competition is “designed to address the challenges faced by the city’s immigrant entrepreneurs, which commonly include access to credit, financial management, language barriers, and access to business networks.”

Five finalists have been selected from a pool of over 30 entries and include proposals for an immigrant-based boot camp program, a New York Public Library workshop series, among others. The grand prize winner will be selected in November and will receive $100,000 to support their program.

For a full list of programs in the running, see the website here.

The Immigrant Learning Center Awards Top Entrepreneurs

Immigrant entrepreneurs in Mass. were recognized at the Immigrant Learning Center’s recent Entrepreneur Awards dinner for their achievements in business. Among those honored, included Rafael Guzman, the founder of RM Technologies. Guzman, who has a master’s degree in manufacturing engineering, was noted for his outstanding business growth. Now employing over 200 employees with a 45 percent revenue growth over the last several years, Guzman stressed the power of education, Boston.com reports.

Three winners received a trophy and a citation from General Steven Grossman, the state’s Treasurer and Receiver.

For a full list of the outstanding immigrant entrepreneurs, read more here.

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The New York City Council has approved a bill that will require small businesses with 20 or more employees to offer sick-leave days. The legislation, set to take effect April 1, 2014, comes after several years of opposition, as some business leaders and politicians argue that such a measure is a potential threat to business.

Nearly 1 million employees that do not currently receive sick-leave will be eligible for unpaid sick-leave through the final bill, which has been met with criticism. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has vowed to veto the law and claims that the measure is a “short-sighted economic policy,” Bloomberg News reported. Other business leaders contend that it restricts job creation due to costs to employers, and are concerned about the economic impact.

Yet Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, a mayoral candidate who formerly opposed the bill, says that there are enough votes to override a veto.

“This legislation fully recognizes the importance of protecting the city’s economy and locks in protections to ensure that its implementation is pegged to continued recovery,” Quinn said, according to Crain’s Insider.

Supporters of the measure hope that other states will follow New York’s lead and eventually have a nationwide policy. Sick-time law measures have already been approved in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Seattle, Milwaukee, and CT, and will go into effect by 2014 in Portland, Ore.

Inside the Bill

Once the mandate is in place on April 1, 2014, businesses with 20 or more on staff will be required to give five sick-leave days to employees. In October 2015, the mandate will apply to smaller businesses with at least 15 or more employees.

The measure also requires that full-time and part-time employees must be on the payroll for least four months to receive leave time. Students and seasonal workers are exempt from the law. The smallest businesses, including manufacturing firms, are also excluded under the measure, Quinn announced.

What do you think of the legislation? Will it help or hurt small business?

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The EPI, which analyzed supply, employment, and wage trends in the STEM labor market, notes that U.S. employers have an ample supply of STEM job candidates to choose from. In fact, for certain majors, supply far outweighs the demand. For instance, the report explains that historically, U.S. colleges have “produced about 50 percent more graduates than are hired into engineering jobs each year,” and more recent data shows that percentage to be even greater in recent years.

“Our examination shows that the STEM shortage in the United States is largely overblown,” according to Hal Salzman, one of the study’s authors.

While scores of reports highlight how STEM students tend to drop out or switch their majors, the EPI argues that there is a significant amount of students who move on to major in a STEM field at some point during their college career. “The pool of STEM majors actually increases between freshman year and graduation…Considering all students who enter a four-year college and graduate within six years, more students take on a STEM major than drop a STEM major,” the report notes.

The report also analyzed why almost half of all engineering graduates and a third of computer science degree holders have a job that is not related to their major degree. They found that a significant number of recent graduates in both fields cited pay, promotion, working conditions, and lack of available jobs as the primary reasons for not working in a college-degree-related field.

For those employed in IT fields, the largest sector of the STEM workforce, the authors found that only a small percentage (24 percent) has at least a bachelor’s degree in math or computer science. To that end, the IT industry recruits graduates with a broad range of degrees. According to 2009 figures, 46.1 percent of computer and information sciences degree graduates had IT jobs a year after graduation, but 30.7 percent of those in IT jobs had graduated in a non-STEM field.

One of the core issues for the IT fields and possibly a reason why the sector fails to attract more STEM graduates is stagnant wages. According to the EPI analysis, IT workers generally earn the same as they did 14 years ago. The study contends that although companies may tend to turn to guestworker programs to recruit international talent to fill STEM jobs (such as IT) with lower wages, policies that will encourage more guestworkers may discourage American students from entering STEM fields.

“Guestworker programs are in need of reform, but any changes should make sure that guestworkers are not lower-paid substitutes for domestic workers,” Salzman noted.

American STEM students are also top performers in high school and college. Educational performance has increased steadily in the U.S. since the 1970s, which is attributed to advancements in educational programs and curricula. Furthermore, even though some reports may indicate that U.S. college students rank average compared with students globally, the report argues: “The United States has generous numbers of students whose test scores place them among the highest of international performers.”

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The Accenture survey, conducted between March and April, captured responses from students graduating this year and those who graduated in 2011 and 2012. Forty-one percent of 2011-2012 college grads say that they are underemployed and 7 percent say that they have been unemployed since graduation.

The new findings reflect similar feedback from a 2012 PayScale survey that revealed that most workers aged 18-29 with a bachelor’s degree had jobs that did not require a college diploma.

Although many young grads cited having difficulty finding their job, the good news for students nearing graduation is that over half (53 percent) with diplomas are employed full-time in their field of study. Of the graduates that are not employed in their major, many said that there were either not enough job openings in the field they studied or that the job search for their chosen profession was taking too long.

College Grad Regrets & Employment

Almost half (48 percent) of unemployed graduates say that they would have had a better chance in the job market with a different major, while 16 percent admitted that they may have fared better attending a different school, according to Accenture. The top three most desirable industries that new grads want to work in are education, media and entertainment, and healthcare, though the highest percentage of graduates have a STEM degree (24 percent), ahead of business and arts and humanities (21 percent).

Are College Grads Prepared?

Even though most 2011 and 2012 college grads believe that their education prepared them for their jobs and careers and that their investment in education was worthwhile, most (63 percent) also say that they will need more training to get to their desired job level. Most (77 percent) also expect their first employer to provide formal training, a benefit that may be necessary for the 50 percent of unemployed grads who say that they are being told by companies that they “do not have enough experience.”

The Best Ways to Land a Job

For many new grads, the best way to gain more experience and ultimately land a job is through internships, though out of the 72 percent of recent grads who had an internship during their college years, just 42 percent said it led to a job.  The size of the company may play a play a major factor in whether interns are hired. According to a comprehensive poll by Internships.com in 2012, 69 percent of companies with 100 or more employees said that they offered full-time jobs to their interns.

Most recent grads (73 percent) and grads-to-be (71 percent) claim that their degree is the biggest help in landing a job, followed by a creative resume, internships, and in-person networking.

A trip to the beach inspired Ryan to create a portable solar-assisted refrigerating cooler that can also charge electronics. His creation is said to offset thousands of pounds of CO2 per year.

In the span of 10 years, McGann took his knowledge gained from his studies in obtaining a mechanical engineering degree at Stony Brook University on Long Island in New York and set off on his journey to become CEO at Solar Cool Technologies, where he directs an extended team of 12 people. In an exclusive interview with IMT Career Journal, McGann explained how he got to where he is today.

Ryan McGann

IMT Career Journal: So what inspired you to become an entrepreneur? Did you join any competitions as a student?

McGann: I found out about the DARE Competition (Dare to Risk Entrepreneurship) at Stony Brook University, and the prize money ($20,000) helped me kick-start my business with the funding of prototypes and legal fees. My prototype was the Solar Cooler.

IMT Career Journal: Now that you’re an entrepreneur, how do you use your engineering skills on a daily basis?

McGann: I use my engineering skills every day, from running a lean operation, and for most of the R&D work. I like doing the top-level design work and initial layout and mechanism work. I also need to communicate with other engineers.

IMT Career Journal: When you were a student, what was most effective in helping you reach entrepreneurship?

McGann: I had one professor who [had real-world business knowledge], and he relayed a lot of his knowledge to the class by [comparing his experiences with a textbook] and sometimes disagreeing with the material.

IMT Career Journal: You spoke at the recent 2013 Advanced Energy Conference, where you mentioned that colleges need a better way to bring together engineering classes and business tracks. What did you mean?

McGann: I took some marketing classes, but I found that there was a tension between business schools and engineering.

IMT Career Journal: What resources have helped you as an entrepreneur?

McGann: The money [from the DARE competition] helped, but it was the mentors that I absorbed through the competition that helped [the most]. There were amazing people that came up to me afterwards, such as the Long Island Angels. I developed a post-competition network. One friend of the family was also an investor in my business.

IMT Career Journal: What advice can you give to engineering students looking to follow in your footsteps as an entrepreneur?

McGann: [Students] shouldn’t be afraid to approach entrepreneurs to ask for advice. Future entrepreneurs usually know who they are. They want to make a bigger impact, and I found that it’s strategic to start a business as a college student before bills pile up.

IMT Career Journal: What are your plans for your business?

McGann: I’m gearing up for our soft launch and getting feedback from customers.