We engineers are trained to have the patience and analytical skills that enable us to create such technological marvels as remote-controlled Mars rovers and stealth fighters, skyscrapers and suspension bridges, and the like. Myopic planning has rarely been a part of our vocabulary. On the other hand, financial analysts' approach to solving problems is limited by a field of vision focused mostly on matters of money.

I'm not saying that we don't need finance-savvy people; engineers should take it upon ourselves to learn the art of finance. Once educated, we then need to move our companies toward technological progress by using our engineering training complemented by our newly acquired financial tools. (To do my part, I plan to enroll in a university program for a better understanding of the esoteric methods of financial analysis; I do not plan to leave the engineering profession.)

We can also focus on other important matters, such as closer regulation of our profession, by weeding out people who choose to attach the title "engineer" to their names without the benefit of education, training, verifiable experience, examination, and recognition by the state licensing boards.

First of all, Kramer has fairly well defined his premise; he states forthrightly that he seeks money and prestige. Thus, those who do not seek the same are undynamic and complacent since they are satisfied to be engineers. It is only a small extrapolation for him to find such people boring.

After my pride in being an American, I am proudest of being an engineer. A better career match of talent and challenge could not be found. There was never anything undynamic nor complacent about my pursuit of the engineering goals that lay before me. My greatest challenge in retirement is to present equivalent goals to myself.

I do not feel that I am exceptional. I feel that I am typical, aside from the fact that I am quite inclined to sit down and write a letter to the editor, whereas most engineers are not. Thus I wish—politely—to chastise Kramer severely. It is his right to walk away from a profession in which he does not seem to fit. Let us grant that he gave it an honest try and not charge him with having deliberately wasted an engineering education. But he has no right to denigrate the profession because it does not worship the dollar before prestige, nor the dollar plus prestige before all else.

A very good practitioner of any profession is hard to find. In trying to hire good engineers, I once went through more than 100 resumes without finding an engineer whom I really wanted to hire. Mechanical engineering is a very broad field, and many of the rejected resumes were probably from people very qualified in their specialties. However, many other applicants claimed to be qualified in exactly what I needed but obviously were not.

One need not have an engineering degree to be a good engineer. An engineer is someone who applies technology to solving problems. Some (unusual) individuals have developed sufficient knowledge and experience in the required fields to perform very well as engineers.

Regarding the shortage or glut of engineers, part of the reason we have such a shortage of very good engineers is that many of the things that engineers do well—such as planning, thinking logically, and working patiently to get to a conclusion—are transferable skills very much in demand in the rest of society. Thus, if a good engineer decides to change his or her career, it is relatively easy to find an opportunity elsewhere—and the best engineers find these opportunities with the least effort.

The reverse is not true, however. People coming from other fields into engineering typically find that they have a tremendous disadvantage. The engineering curriculum normally includes a very full load of solid courses, providing specific knowledge not easily learned in other professions.

Becoming a good engineer usually requires many years of experience beyond a degree to develop background and perspective. A business major, for example, will find it nearly impossible to change to engineering without taking a few years' sabbatical to study and a few years more to gain the requisite experience. As is the case with engineers, the best find it the easiest, but it is still more difficult than most people want to tackle.

Furthermore, the business major working in his or her field is typically closer to the sources of profit and funding than is the engineer, and these positions typically pay more.

My advice to young people considering an engineering career is to not go into engineering for the money. Do it because you're convinced that you will love it. If you think you will be happier in another profession, then choose that one. Success is convincing someone to pay you to play.

To make such a point, Mark A. Bruce ("Solar Versus Nuclear Is Not So Simple," Letters, June) selects a segment of the total energy problem and suggests that a $5,000 investment in alternative energy—presumably solar—to replace electric domestic hot-water heating would be considerably cheaper than building and decommissioning a nuclear plant. I was unfortunate enough to be saddled with a solar/electric hot-water heating system in a house I bought a few years ago.

For the first three years, I did indeed save a small amount on my electric bill. However, when the $154 controller went out and other maintenance needed to be performed, my savings were quickly wiped out. I disconnected the solar heating system and have been running much more economically ever since.

Solar power clearly falls short. A casual reading of an undergraduate physics textbook reveals that the sun's radiation energy as it enters our atmosphere amounts to just 2 calories per minute on 1 square centimeter of surface. One-third of that energy is absorbed as it passes through the atmosphere. Making further allowances for losses resulting from energy transitions—from radiation to thermal and so on, then finally to electrical—100 square miles of collectors would be needed to replace a 2,000-megawatt nuclear plant.

But that's just the start. Now we have to store that energy received during 6 to 8 hours of sunlight for nighttime use. Electrical storage batteries come to mind. Typically, these batteries must be replaced periodically. The costs associated with the disposal of thousands of tons of spent lead and acid every three years or so must certainly be compared with the costs of decommissioning a nuclear plant that Bruce mentions.

These costs, incidentally, would be much lower were it not for political and bureaucratic regulations. The same cannot be said for solar-plant waste.

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