The Technical Re-Education Of Engineering Management
Authors: Perrine Richard L. 
Published: December 2007

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This paper is to be presented at the 39th Annual Fall Meeting to be held in Houston, Tex., on Oct. 11–14, 1964, and is considered property of the Society of Petroleum Engineers. Permission to publish is hereby restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words, with no illustrations, unless the paper is specifically released to the press by the Editor of the Journal of Petroleum Engineers or the Executive Secretary. Such abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented. Publication elsewhere after publication in JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM TECHNOLOGY or SOCIETY OF PETROLEUM ENGINEERS JOURNAL is granted on request, providing proper credit is given that publication and the original presentation of the paper.

Discussion of this paper is invited. Three copies of any discussion should be sent to the Society of Petroleum Engineers office. Such discussion may be presented at the above meeting and, with the paper, may be considered for publication in one of the two SPE magazines.

There has been substantial interest in the technical re-education of engineering managers in recent years. As the engineer becomes proficient in management, he tends to lose his technical background. Of the few programs designed to meet this problem, "Modern Engineering for Engineering Executives" is one of the oldest. The purpose of this paper is to describe this program clearly: its objectives, course content, and the problems associated with conduct of such a course.

Introduction

The University of California has maintained a program of continuing education for many years. During the last twenty of these years University Extension, as it is called, has grown by an order of magnitude. On the Los Angeles campus continuing education programs in engineering grew initially from non-credit war training courses developed during the 1940's. The first of the special courses, a forerunner of today's short courses, was a lecture series in "Modern Physics for Engineers," presented during the late 1940's. It is interesting to note that during this same period lecture series related to petroleum production were developed and were very well received within the California oil-producing areas.

The present program of continuing education includes a variety of offerings: regular engineering courses given off campus, an off campus graduate program, certificate programs in such professional fields as propulsion, and engineering short courses. On the Los Angeles campus, engineering short courses presently number about fifty per year. These programs are organized and presented through the active collaboration of Engineering Extension and the regular faculty of the Department of Engineering.

Many changes, including changes in this pattern of continuing education, are accompanying the growth of the state of California. One such change has been the development of a unique short course: "Modern Engineering for Engineering Executives." First offered in 1961, the program has aroused considerable interest and has been copied both by industrial organizations for in-house training and by other educational institutions.