A Scientist's Obligation & Opportunity

For the last couple of days I've been attending a class taught by one of the major icons in optical design, Lacy Cook. He said something today that I just had to write about.

Lacy was making the point that if an organization's seasoned engineers don't pass along the lessons they have learned in their career, then the organization is destined to go through the pain of training fresh engineers from scratch which takes an entire career. An engineers value to the organization can increase only if he can and does teach the next generation. It really is our responsibility as older engineers and scientists to pass along what we know. It is also one of the most valuable things we can do. We should be learning from those around us, doing the work that the company needs and teaching what we know about doing that work to the others we work with. It really is that teaching that increases our value to the company and to society. Beside that, engineers and scientists don't become legends and really cool geeks revered among the other geeks without seriously sharing our talent and knowledge with them. That's what creates such legends.
troy@starkeffects.com
http://www.starkeffects.com/