Americans go to the ballot box in less than a month to choose not only the next president but also the make-up of Congress. With the 112th Congress set to enter the record books as the least productive body since the end of World War II, it is no surprise only 10 percent of the nation has confidence in these representatives. We have impossible problems, few creative ideas and almost no logical solutions.
Consider for a moment if the U.S. House and Senate included people who are already developing innovative strategies every day for seemingly insurmountable challenges. I know our nation would be on a better path if more engineers filled the Capitol.
While our nation’s first Congress had no scientists or engineers — 34 of the 91 elected members were lawyers — our country was blessed with the ingenuity of people like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Everyday American life was colored by science and invention. The building of a new kind of republic was an exercise of inventiveness in itself.
Today’s Congress is more occupationally diverse than that inaugural body, though the share of legal practitioners remains unchanged. Four out of every 10 representatives are lawyers. A mere 1 percent of the 535 voting and non-voting members is listed as scientists or engineers. If that ratio of lawyers and engineers were reversed, I believe we would have a very different dynamic. An engineering mindset would help us surmount the obstacles in front of us.
That’s because the men and women who choose engineering as their life’s work are consummate problem solvers. They are not persuaded by public opinion and emotional arguments. They have the capacity to view challenges from different angles. They apply logic and creativity to their craft. They deal in precision and build with integrity. Above all else, they are driven to make things work.
I see these characteristics every day in students. Case in point: A team of budding engineers was concerned about the complications that often arise when a person has a tracheal tube inserted. Healthcare workers who perform intubation sometimes damage the patient’s larynx or vocal chords in the insertion process, even causing paralysis in extreme cases.
Such injuries have been commonplace for years. But the students looked at the problem from a new vantage point and invented a magnetic device that makes intubation nearly effortless. These students will graduate and join an engineering community that has made indelible marks on human history.
One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken was the Panama Canal. Each of the individual steps taken to construct it was, in itself, a model of extraordinary innovation. Building the canal’s Gutan Dam, for example, required taming a wildly charging river and the conquering of a mountain’s stubborn rock slides. What kind of brilliance and confidence looks at such forces of nature and concludes they can be defeated?
A more recent example is the landing of the Curiosity spacecraft on Mars. From 35 million miles away, we engineered a way to slow down a vehicle traveling 13,000 miles per hour, deployed the largest parachute ever made, fired rockets to arrest its final descent and lowered a wheeled vehicle by tether to the bottom of a crater — all without colliding with an adjacent mountain that stands four miles tall.
Both Curiosity and the Panama Canal illustrate another relevant point about engineers. They work to create enduring solutions. Engineers want the products of their design and labor to benefit people well into the future. The Panama Canal continues to serve us a century later. And while we don’t yet know the durability of Curiosity, the Voyager 1 spacecraft pushes toward interstellar space, 35 years after its launch.
Embracing the engineer’s imagination, precision and optimism would bring a fresh approach to addressing our nation’s toughest challenges, from healthcare to energy to national security. An engineering mindset would yield innovative approaches and more informed decisions.
Perhaps, most remarkably, it could restore our nation’s faith in our legislative leaders. Isn’t that what our forefathers envisioned? Isn’t that what America deserves?
