2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Preparing Future Generations for Executive Leadership Roles in Technical Organizations

Presented at Engineering Management Division (EMD) Technical Session 3

Abstract
To meet the challenges and opportunities of educating new generations of engineering leaders for jobs of the future, Engineering Management programs must evolve with a strategy that integrates academic education with workplace application. That strategy must address the changing demographics of technical industries and their workforces. We can meet that challenge by unifying technical leadership fundamentals into an applied experience, internalizing engineering management coursework with a real-life technical leadership scenario that is applicable across industries.
Education research[1] shows that working professional students learn best through case studies, active learning, and project-based activity. This paper describes how the Johns Hopkins part-time Master of Engineering Management program builds on this approach by recruiting faculty who are senior executives from industry. These faculty apply their experience to drive nuanced critical thinking in a team-based real-world scenario. The paper further describes the course evolution from its first offering in 2015 by adapting specific adult-learning techniques such as retrieval practice, problem solving, critical thinking, cross-discipline collaboration, and relevance to working professional careers.
In this capstone course we take this approach to another level by inviting practicing senior executives from industry and government to role play a board of directors in a strategic, global investment scenario. Students acting in the roles of senior technical executives present a technical strategy and implementation plan where they assess the wants/needs of customers, the company’s technical competitive position, make-buy choices, acquisition of critical technology, and technical organization integration to meet the company’s strategy that evolves over the fourteen-week semester. The visiting senior executives then become the students' mentors, evaluators, and coaches for a day long experience of "walking in the shoes of senior technical executives". Capstone Day concludes with a visiting executive roundtable.

This paper describes how this course, as part of the Johns Hopkins Master of Engineering Management, integrates critical EM topics through the lens of the technical executive. It addresses leadership and organizational management, strategic planning, financial resource management, project management, make-buy supply chain management, management of technology, etc. In addition, this paper touches on how this course connects with our MEM program organization, outcome assessment, and program/course effectiveness. It simulates workplace application of engineering management skills and concepts with educational implications (including academic and industry collaboration). The instructors integrate their engineering management education success stories, innovative teaching practices, and combined asynchronous and synchronous learning networks with industry diversity.

This course was first described at the ASEE National Conference, June 2016. Today’s paper also addresses how the course has evolved responding to student feedback, changing student demographics, and MEM program restructuring.

Authors

Mr. Richard (Rick) Warren Blank Johns Hopkins Engineering for Professionals [biography]

Richard W (Rick) Blank, B.A., B.S., M.S.
Mr. Blank is a Lecturer in the Engineering for Professionals Master of Engineering Management Program at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering. In this program he teaches Planning & Managing Projects; Finance, Contracts, & Compliance for Technical Professionals; Strategic Communications in Technical Organizations; and Executive Technical Leadership. He also holds an appointment as the Engineering for Professionals Corporate Engagement Lead. In that role he enables connections between corporations/agencies and Johns Hopkins to collaborate on advancing the skills of their employees. He was previously the MEM Program Manager.

Mr. Blank was appointed an adjunct instructor at the Whiting School of Engineering in January 2009, after joining the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in October 2006. Until his retirement from APL in September 2021, he held leadership roles as APL’s Deputy Chief Quality Officer, served as the Chief of Strategy for the Force Projection Sector, lead program managers as the Deputy Business Area Executive for Undersea Warfare, and was the Ocean Data Acquisition Program Manager delivering acoustic and non-acoustic systems to the US Navy submarine fleet. From 1975 to 2006, Mr. Blank served in a variety of executive leadership and engineering positions for Rockwell Collins including Senior Director of Programs, Director of Engineering Processes, Director of International Joint Ventures and Alliances, Program Manager, Marketing Manager, and Systems Engineer. He has contributed to communications, navigation, and flight management system solutions for both commercial and military applications.

Mr. Blank received a Master of Science degree in Engineering / Applied Science from the University of California, Davis in 1975; a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics in 1973; and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics in 1973 also from the University of California, Davis. He has completed executive seminars in International Strategy Development from the Thunderbird University, the Executive Development Program from the University of Iowa, and Contract Finance for Program Managers at the Defense Systems Management College. Mr. Blank has authored or co-authored four technical papers; his article, “The NAVSTAR Global Positioning System,” was published in Signal Magazine, November 1986 edition; he co-authored the paper "Putting Engineering Management on the Executive Track", presented at the American Society for Engineering Education, June 29, 2016; and moderated the Panel Session Translating Engineering Management from the Classroom to the Workplace at the ASEE National Conference June 6, 2023. He was also recognized with the Johns Hopkins Engineering for Professionals Distinguished Instructor Award for 2022-2023.
Mr. Stanislaw Tarchalski The Johns Hopkins University [biography]

StaÅ› Tarchalski is a retired senior executive with more than 30 years of progressive responsibility and experience in leading strategic business planning and execution, large/complex program development and management, technical leadership and systems e

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