I didn’t start out wanting to be an industrial engineer, as I approached my senior year in high school my expectations and goals were to become a Federal Marshall. I had it all planned out while attending Penn State University to get a law degree (I had no discipline planned) I worked nights for a local police department, after graduating with a law degree, then I extended my education level to Masters and switch my night job with the police department to the sheriff’s department. Finally, once I obtained my master’s degree, I would have the education, years of experience in law, and would have reached the minimum age to apply for a position as a Deputy Federal Marshal.

Enough dreams and time to wake up, all that changed abruptly when my first wife’s father convinced me to get out of the police trial and take me to the Engineering trial, since he himself was an industrial engineer with a master’s degree in it. . countryside. I started off by going to the same university as him to get my Industrial Engineering degree, but instead of continuing with my Master’s I chose to diversify and while working as an Industrial Engineer I got a second degree in Business Administration. But enough of the background that led me to work as IE for over twenty years.

My first job was an IE technician for Pullman Standard in Butler Pa. Pullman Standard was a railroad car manufacturing, the kind they built in Butler were coal cars and box cars. All of these were built from raw material stocks throughout the assembly and painting process. The Industrial Engineering Department was made up of around seven engineers with varying degrees of experience, we were all responsible for the methods, standards and quality criteria of more than two thousand workers distributed in three shifts. Looking back now, this was probably the only company I worked for where the IE department was actually in charge of all aspects of the engineering discipline. Unfortunately, this lasted for three years as this was the beginning of the era of companies going abroad to manufacture their products, this downsizing and company closings. Pullman chose the last one, more than two thousand people without work.

At my next stop, with a generous severance package (compared to today’s standards) of one month’s pay for each year of service, I had three months to find a job before having to search my savings account. Fortunately, I was able to get another Engineering job in three months, although it was short-lived and killed by the same villain as my first job. The duties of this job were much like the first to develop and implement standards and methods for the various operations across Robertshaw Controls electronic devices. At the end of this short-term job I began to think that perhaps the north was not such a safe bet to get a job that would last until retirement. So, being young and brave (or maybe just ignorant), I headed south to find work in the textile / clothing industry.

So I stopped in Winston Salem / Greensboro, the heart of the textile and apparel industry. I was able to get a position as a Junior IE with Hanes within a couple of months of looking for a job in my chosen field. This was my first introduction to the default timing standards. Since this was the standard operation for the engineering department, I was given the gift of being sent back to school to learn MOST’s HB Maymard system. Again, the IEs were in charge of the development of the Method and the implementation of the standard.

I stayed with Hanes for seven years until I got bored and eager for new adventures and took a job as IE manager for Fruit of the Loom for their new multi-million dollar facility in Texas. The delay in construction would prevent operations from starting on time, so I was deployed to the US and Canada doing various projects for a year until the opening of the plant. This stage of my career was probably the most enjoyable time to get to know the US while gaining a wealth of experience. But it was finally grand opening day and work began on the Texas plant, I had a small staff of four to cover a 1,200-employee plant in two shifts. The standards practices were the development and improvement of methods, the development and implementation of standards. This lasted for about seven years and that villain raised his head again and the downsizing and shutting down of plants began once again. The garment industry was moving to Honduras and Mexico, although I did my share of travel to both countries while working at Fruit of the Loom, it was not my thing to accept a transfer so far south. So, with the closure of another plant, I was looking for another job.

Ironically, my next job took me back to my original metal fabrication roots with making fuel filtration vessels. And with this move and back to the standard duties of using standard development time studies with an added twist of compiling the data into a computerized data system to keep track of part standards and methods. Four years later, the company, after 25 years in business, decided to outsource the manufacturing operation and operate exclusively with the filtration end. Add another 4 more years and that brings me up to speed, working with the same company but working with the filtration products. Duties range from setting standards to developing methods and ensuring quality criteria are followed. Using a combination of time studies, predetermined standards, and video analytics. Although there is no once large IE department of six or seven people to run the plant, it may keep us busy all day, but we can both run it.

So there you have it for more than two decades hanging around the United States working for some major industries that were swept away by foreign competition. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had pursued a career in law enforcement, there is an endless supply of (criminal) products to get guaranteed job security without fear of the product line moving overseas.