It was my pleasure to speak recently at the annual conference of a unique organization, Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering, or AMIE. This non-profit group has set out to expand corporate, government and academic alliances to create programs that “attract, educate, graduate and place under-represented minority students in engineering careers,” as its literature says.

I wish them success. The energy industry needs every well-trained engineer it can find right now. I envy the young engineers entering the business today. The daughter of some friends graduated cum laude from the University of Tulsa a few months ago with a petroleum engineering degree. Talk about recruiting: I don’t think any hotshot, five-star high school quarterback receives more cards, letters, phone calls, visits or emails than that young lady did. She could be choosy and landed a great job with a top-notch energy firm.

We’ve had a number of stories in these pages on “the big crew change” that oil and gas faces in the next few years as those who entered this business 30 to 40 years ago look at retirement. Meanwhile, the midstream—in particular— must deal with an all-out boom in business.

But our discussions at the AMIE conference often turned on two key topics. First, many students don’t know what the opportunities in engineering and technical professions are. Second, and worse, interested students are usually ill prepared for the rigorous math and science courses technical majors require.

Keeping up with Canada

With that background, a story in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye. The authors, Paul E. Peterson and Eric A. Hanushek, helped write a new book, “Endangering Prosperity: A Global View of the American School.” They point out that, frankly, U.S. schools don’t do a very good job, particularly in teaching math and science.

The federal government’s National Assessment of Educational Progress finds only 32% of U.S. high school students are proficient in math.

Compare that to a similar international program that found 49% of Canada’s high school students are math proficient. The authors conclude based on their studies that the U.S. “GDP growth rate would be boosted by about three-fourths of 1% a year if student test scores in math rose by 40 points higher on international tests, to the level attained by Canadian students. Three-quarters of a percent a year seems small, but it generates an amount five times our current GDP of $16 trillion.”

Yet the U.S. spends more money per student on its schools than virtually all other nations. So in simple terms, taxpayers get a very poor return on investment from their schools. This is no abstract exercise, the results show up in unfilled jobs posted on the Internet and in the back of Sunday newspapers. Midstream firms stand to gain by working with local school districts and getting involved in programs such as AMIE—and taking school board members to task on improving the bang-per-buck in education.

Booming plays such as the Utica shale illustrate just how much the midstream needs good hands. We update what’s happening in the Utica in this issue as we lead up to the DUG East conference in Pittsburgh. Midstream Business also will be involved in two other Hart Energy conferences this month, the Permian-focused Executive Oil Conference in Midland, Texas, and the inaugural Crude In Motion conference in Houston, which will focus on the rapid changes in midstream transport.

We want to make sure these pages contribute to what you do, so don’t hesitate to share your ideas and opinions with us.

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