Change of career focus

[fenderbassman]

I am 60 and have spent 20 years working primarily in the area of residential and light commercial structural engineering. Now that the housing market has collapsed in my locality and nationally, there is very little demand for my skillset. I am a P.E., civil with structural emphasis.

Any other structural engineers share this experience? Have you been successful at transfering into other areas of engineering?

 

[desnov74]

I work with an engineer 1/2-time, and he does forensic fire investigations. What about structural fire? Take an NFPA 921 seminar, and get into that market. That can lead into expert witness work. He does well with that, and throws me a bone once and a while.

 

[henri2]

If you are prepared to move to another state (then again you might not have to), consider opportunities with:
1. Construction Materials Testing and Inspection Agencies
2. Buiding Materials Manufacturers and or Suppliers

 

[casseopeia]

There is a need for your skill set, just not enough clients willing to pay for it. At 60, you are at the ideal age and background for forensic consultant and expert witness. Look into doing fire and insurance investigations as well as construction defect litigation. If you are very fit, you may not even need a youngster to do some of the more physically challenging tasks like crawling under buildings, over the remnants of a collapsed structure, or through attics. Don’t limit yourself to one type of consultant work. I’m in California and was in the construction defect investigation field for 7 years, until I was laid off. After a year, I am still out of full-time work because of a slow down in cases filed as a result of some legal changes. There are a lot of free-lancers out here scratching for jobs in the CD field.

I’d also look into doing physical due diligence for institutional investors, but only if you can truly write well, write quickly, and know something about other aspects of the building such as types of roof and window systems, and are generally proficient with architectural code requirements. You may also need to do quite a bit of traveling away from home. If you are desperate, you can also do HUD inspections. But after a year on unemployment, I’m not even that desperate.

I have found that materials testing and sales have are very much tied to the construction market and not what I would call a rich resource for work. Too much time investment for little to no reward.

I think the best avenue into any of these options is to find all of the A/E firms in your region that do this kind of work and approach them as an outside resource, and keep in front of them. You may just have to wait until you hit the right day. In CD litigation, it is then easy enough to bypass the A/E firm and hire out directly to their clientele, the law firms that retain them. For due diligence work, it would be much tougher since the institutional investors generally require that you be vetted through their system, which can take a very long time, years in some cases.

If you are not up to crawling around difficult sites, or traveling far from home, check into other types of work that requires civil engineering. I’m in the SF Bay area and I’ve noticed an uptick in a need for civil engineers for small to medium landscape jobs on a per job basis. Contact some landscape architects to see if there is a possibility for work there. Also take a look through craigslist under architectural/engineering and governmental sectors. Be prepared to spend valuable hours doing this, however. There is a lot of weeding through the mis-categorized and low pay trash that it may not be worth your time. And light a candle for the economy!





"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump