A tough spot to fill

L ast year, a civil engineering job at Gresham's Watershed Management Division stayed open four months before finally filling the job.

That's not unusual: public and private employers throughout the region are struggling to attract qualified civil engineers from a small pool of candidates.

"There are jobs opening, and not enough young people to fill them," said Steve Fancher, manager at Greshman's Watershed Management Division. The challenge of filling engineering jobs, Fancher said, is tougher now than at any time in the past 12 years.

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What that means for students heading into the civil engineering field is that opportunities abound. Most get numerous job offers as early as the fall of their senior year. Even bidding wars over candidates are not unheard of as development in Oregon continues to boom and even the smallest projects inevitably require an engineer.

"Most students have had multiple job offers and we've found that companies who wait too long can no longer find students," said Michael Chajes, member of the educational activities committee for American Society of Civil Engineers. "The new trend is to get students as interns before their senior year and have to commit to a job before they go back to school."

This week, some 30 civil engineering interns working at at firms across Oregon for a two-day educational session that included tours of local engineering projects. Students toured Gresham's rain garden, or water recycling system, and its the new traffic light system, anong other projects.

One intern on the tour, 22-year-old from North Carolina State University student Brady Finklea, said a lot of what turns most of his classmates off of being a civil engineer are the four semesters of calculus classes and the 40-hour weekly load of homework.

"They try to weed you out the first two years," said Finklea, an intern at Portland's Kittelson & Associates consulting firm, one of the sponsors of this week's session.

At Oregon State University, about half of students who declare a civil engineering major change majors before they graduate, said Chris Bell, associate dean in the school's college of engineering.

In 1994, there were 44,619 students enrolled in civil engineering programs nationwide, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. Less than a decade later, that number had dropped to 37,274 students.

Their work is critically important: civil engineers design roads and bridges, water and sewer systems, and power plants, among other infrastructure needs. "They say we design everything but the building," said Stacy Frost, president of the Oregon section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

High math skills are required for the detail-oriented field, and students realize that they could be paid more in other math and science based professions, like pharmacy or electrical engineering. The average salary for civil engineers last year was $72,120, while the salary for pharmacists in the same time periow was $93,500, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Those who decide to stick with if can find out through the internship programs what the work is really like -- while companies can tap into potential job candidates.

"We are getting real work from them and they are getting experience," said Fancher.

Rachel Hatzipanagos: 503-294-7671; rhatzipanagos@ news.oregonian.com