Corporate technical officer(CTO)-what's that

Imagine an P.Eng. in the Board room(unless in disguise) advising Directors about operational matters!Banks require accountants in their backrooms for sure—but complex technical operations seem also to be ‘run’ buy accountants and maybe lawyers—all good folks I know---but where are the technical officers?(Why not a Corporate Technical Officer?)—likely out ‘cleaning up the mess’!

Engineers are not sufficiently apparent in the ‘scheme of things’.What/how can we enlighten the world and improve things?Do we all ‘need, to add MBA to our CVs---My whining won’t solve the problem but the world needs to include more technical advisors in their (corporate and legislative) governance? My only remaining option is to yap at anyone that might listen—not much time left(1957 engineering grad) –though late in my mission, I try—With that in mind I do offer the occasional letter to various media and politicians,etc.—mostly in vain ,but surprisingly with the occasional personal response—So I forward this and hope that somehow we can come out of the wilderness and begin to show the world what they’re missing.Engineers, alone, won’t save the world but we do make it a better place,in my opinion!

“The Enbridge Nightmare(see recently released NTSB/Enbridge reports) is a making of their own---a lack of commitment to operational training by management and OF management can lead to Nightmares.Management often will fall back onto the old ‘dodge’ such as “we followed all the regulations,standards of the day”—give me a break—systems start to become obsolete after day 2 of startup—Besides ‘leader’s don’t follow standards,they set the standard! A cruel thing to say but life is cruel and managements’ obligations are demanding and ceaseless .So,what to do—Listening to your own people(is anyone listening?) is often the best place to start and they will tell you where to find the ‘areas of concern’ and then do something about it(but be sure have an open door policy with meaning)---Accountants have their role but complex physical systems need ongoing scrutiny—operations and engineering folks should be at the fore---so where’s the Financial Officer in this picture---probably in the Board room advising about ways to increase share value,OK. Now tell me where the Corporate Technical Officer is---well firstly ,‘We don’t have such a beast’—they(engineers,operations people) always want to spend money –and that’s not our business,etc. Result –often one big screw up—or maybe 2! Think of Kalamazoo oil spill, Ocean Ranger oil platform loss,Space ship Challenger disaster,Walkerton E-Coli fiasco,Ford Pinto scenario,etc.,etc., Hindsight engineering is not easy---but foresight engineering is one hell of a lot more difficult-right?—We may have to devote a lot of resources to this sometimes trial and error engineering—a costly exercise for sure---like insurance. But if, as a Director, I’m not held accountable and I can deflect the CONSEQUENCES to someone else—to hell with worrying about CONSEQUENCES! Eventually , a Board’s delaying of action can be the most costly ‘action’—will Enbridge survive this fiasco—they probably will survive---I’m hoping to see an epiphany by the Enbridge Board—maybe not as significant as Lyndon B. Johnson where he made the impossible ,possible by uttering 3 words “we shall overcome”—see http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/johnson.htm But we can only hope that we can overcome and get on with the job! “