Nathan Epps and Merlin Peterson are both 32-year-old men who have civil engineering degrees. They’re sharp, honest and are young enough to contribute to an organization for three decades, easily.

Private engineering firms and government agencies around the world are competing heavily for people just like them.

There is a shortage of engineers throughout Alaska and the rest of the world. An engineer nowadays can get a job virtually anywhere in the world, and within a few years be earning salaries in the six-figure range.

Epps and Peterson chose to stay in Alaska, taking positions with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Alaska district, opting for reasonable hours and lower paychecks in the government over the atmosphere of high stress, long hours and big paychecks.

“I might have made more money and had more hours, but that would have been 80-plus hours a week,” Peterson said. “I’m active, I like to do things outside of work. That didn’t interest me; I wanted a home life.”

With its strong economy — prompting big spending in construction, oil exploration, mining and many other areas — Alaska is competing on a global scale for engineers of all disciplines, from the relatively well-stocked rolls of civil and mechanical to the meagerly stocked areas of petroleum and corrosion engineers.

Businesses and government agencies in Alaska are finding more and more that they are competing with the world to land these professionals.

It’s a war for talent, said Leo von Scheben, who is currently the Alaska Department of Transportation commissioner and former president of the private sector architect and engineering firm USKH.

“There are a lot of us looking for engineers, surveyors and architects,” he said. “When I hire someone here, I’m taking from someone else who needs them. Same with the private sector; if I hire from Outside, I’m still taking from someone else.”

DOT has more engineers on staff than all other state agencies combined. Engineers oversee the various stages of construction projects that total about $1 billion a year. In the next five years, DOT could see up to 40 percent of its work force retire, von Scheben said.

“I’m very concerned about this,” he said. “If you walk around any DOT building, you’ll see a lot of people in my age bracket, in their 50s and 60s. We’re already behind the curve in training mid-level and senior-level managers. This to me presents a crisis.”

Help wanted (desperately)

According to the state Department of Labor, Alaska has about 3,000 engineers, such as civil, electrical, mechanical, petroleum or health and safety, among others.

By 2014, about half those positions will need to be replaced due to events such as retirement or leaving the state, and DOL projects that the industry will add more than 800 new jobs during that same time period.

International companies operating in Alaska, like BP and others, have ramped up recruiting efforts only in the last couple of years. As oil prices jumped, it became more economical for exploration in previously questionable fields. Today, the producers have several projects in operation, demanding more engineers to oversee the work.

That will be difficult in itself. But finding professionals for the more specialized areas, such as mining or corrosion engineers, will add to the challenges.

One example is petroleum engineers. Some 238 petroleum engineers worked in the state in 2004, according to the state Labor Department. By 2014, industry will need to add 20 more of the hard to come by professionals, in addition to those who retire.

Engineers bring in good wages. Alaska’s civil engineers earn an average salary of nearly $75,000 a year, while petroleum engineers earn nearly $106,000 annually.

Average salary for interns at the Corps of Engineers is $32,000, plus a 24 percent cost of living allowance, which is tax free. After completing the program, new recruits earn $54,000.

Starting salary for a new college graduate at ASRC Energy is $60,000 a year.

These are jobs that pay good money and encourage a range of creativity. So why aren’t there more of them?

The main reason: It’s hard. It’s nearly a 10-year process to get a professional engineering license. Students are subjected to ultra-high-level math and sciences courses in the first two years of a four-year degree.

That’s enough to wash out a good portion of the students.

Still, DOT Commissioner von Scheben said that overall it’s easier for today’s students to get through engineering programs compared to his generation.

“I started in the ’50s. We used a slide rule,” he said. “Now they have computers models and software. There’s a lot to make it easier.”

And engineering isn’t viewed as a sexy profession, he added. There are no television shows featuring mechanical engineers. Networks instead focus on doctors or lawyers. Their work is often hidden behind the walls of skyscrapers or under half a foot of pavement.

“The big key is how do we get kids to look at engineering as an exciting profession,” he said. “We engineers do exciting projects. We just have to market it better.”

Education and marketing

The University of Alaska campuses in Anchorage and Fairbanks are responding to the needs. Both have ramped up their engineering programs, and both are popular hang-out spots for human resource managers looking for engineers.

Maija Rhode, human resources manager for Dowl Engineers, is a regular at the campuses, especially at UAA. About 20 percent of Dowl’s labor force is from the campus.

BP’s Alaska office has tripled the number of college students it hires, now nabbing around 30 a year.

Industry is hoping to entice more students into university programs by funding scholarships. “We probably have more scholarships than any other engineer program,” said Gang Chen, professor at the UAF school of mining and engineering.

It’s helping. The UAF mining engineer program saw a 200 percent increase in its student roles, but the jump isn’t as impressive as one would think. The program grew from four students last year to 12 this year. It could accept as many as 40.

Some, like the Corps of Engineers, gets creative. The Corps sponsors the Department of Army Intern Training Program, a two-year program where entering engineers rotate through the various disciplines to give young engineers a chance to taste different areas. The agency takes on about four interns a year, and hopes they stay on permanently, either in the office where they interned or a position at another Corps office.

All too often, the hopes for loyalty are crushed.

Ed Ruebling, the lead mechanical engineer with ASRC Energy, hired four new engineers within the last year. Three are already gone.

“We like to get kids out of school,” Ruebling said. “They don’t have a lot of bad habits, and they’re really sharp, too. You’re hiring someone to think for you. These kids are good thinkers, and they’re energetic. I was hoping they’d be more loyal, too, but that’s not working out.”

Two of the deserters followed partners to the Lower 48, he said. One man was there for less than a year, working on several different projects. That experience fluffed up his resume enough to land him a job at a competing company earning more money.

“The market is very tight, there’s a huge engineering shortage in Houston and elsewhere right now,” Ruebling said. “With the demand right now, people feel more freedom to go wherever they want.”

Ruebling, Rhode and others like them are more often looking to the Lower 48 and Canada.

“It’s our belief that a good engineer is not looking for work if they are happy where they are,” Rhode said. “The sad thing — in a good way — is that we’re growing. A licensed, experienced, professional, sharp engineer doesn’t come along every day. But sometimes you can’t wait for an Alaska engineer to come along.”

Alaska companies advertise in select markets, in trade magazines and journals. They post jobs on such Web sites as monster.com or other specialty sites. As a last resort, they hire headhunters.

It’s getting tougher: Alaska doesn’t have the draw it used to, said Florian Borowski, BP’s human resources manager and resource planning.

“Not everybody actively gravitates toward Alaska,” he said. “Part of the challenge is educating people about the lifestyle here.”

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