Career Opjectives

[cmaxwell]

I'm wondering what the typical career path of a calibrator is? As a Naval technician back in the 1990's I assumed the career path went something like this:

E1-E5 as a technician working on the bench with increasing responsibility in training JR. techs. As an E-5 we would rotate the production supervisor responsibility. As an E-6 the sailor would normally be a W/C Supervisor.

E-7-E9 Purely administrative at the command level.

As a civilian calibrator a career could move in a similar direction, but I think most calibrators think their career's are not moving in any particular direction at all.

So....I ask this question. Where is your career today and where would you like your career to go in the future? 

[mdbuike]

Colleen..an honest answer..

after 21 years in the USAF, doing both SATCOM and PMEL (depended on the assignment)...

I enjoy just working the bench...

What I object to..now adays, the paperwork seems more important than the end result...I can have a perferctly nominal piece of test equipment go out, but if I miss-spell a word on the certificate, it's a failure..

I've been contract over 15 years..and I am almost at the point I'd rather spoil the grandkids

Mike..it's late, and I just finished practicing with the band at church..so I'm kinda tired..

Hope this helps

[RFCAL]

Colleen:
  I would like to be a cal lab manager. If you have any openings,let me know.

[K-Rock]

I want to be Richard Branson!
http://www.askmen.com/men/december99/6c_richard_branson.html

[baileyda]

Colleen,

I see your with Davis now.  Do you need an updated resume?

[52ftbuddha]

My first Post who would have thought.  I find that the management within the labs that I support is being drawn from outside of the areas of technical expertise and is principally skilled leaders within the parent organization.  I think the career path for technicians wishing to move to management of a calibration lab is limited.  Unfortunately the skills that make a good or great technician or metrology engineer do not translate well to that of leadership.  The DOD throughout all branches of service recognizes this and develops leaders with training and organizational structure some of which you illustrate below.  This is not what I see within the calibration community be it the DOD civilians or the private sector.  I think your suggestion that a civilian can move in the same way is wrong and I would ask you to cite specific example.  It is hard enough to find a qualified technician, managers are two a penny. 

[skolito]

most civilian managers don't know how to deal with military people and most of them are "college" grads that don't have any idea what the real world is like and do not really have any idea what we do If I say its going to take 6 hours to cal that unit and it has to be here for 72 hours to warm up the managers are always giving 2 day turn and then want to be mad when I cannot do it. A manager in this industry needs to have a background in it if not then he/she will not have a clue how we do our jobs and will constantly be on you about the time it takes to make good measurements. I understand that we are here to make money but there is a difference between a fluke 87 DMM and a agilent 34401a and the time it takes to do one not to mention the price.

[52ftbuddha]

I would suggest that in the NAVLAP > 6 day turn around lab that I oversee the civilian managers do a fine job of managing the prior military civilians.  What I need from a manager is measureable success in the long term.  That means delivering the product on time and at the stated cost while meeting the requirements of the contract and for the company to attract and keep a workforce.  This is the same in all industry the miscellany of misery (skolito) you describe in your post is below the noise floor of anything a manager should be involved in.  Any organization worth its weight should have organizational structure (ISO) to mitigate what you complain of. 

[skolito]

Granted 52 but most managers that come into the workforce today have the lean manufacturing mentality and are nothing but bean counters and have no idea what we do from day to day. to them techs are a dime a dozen. to them a Phys/D tech making 22.00 an hour can be replaced by 2 techs making 9.00 an hour and there will be no problems.
They want to know why tech 1 only put 2 units out while tech 2 put 25 out and made more money than tech one. He is not looking at what tech 1 actually put out he is looking at the bottom dollar. then when it comes time for a raise tech 2 gets more for putting out a 25:2 ratio for the year.

Tech 1 RF/microwave
Tech 2 general equipment


Of course there are great managers out there that hold true to the golden rule and those sites thrive and have no problems meeting goals and everyone is happy.

Guess I'm just tired of the lets spend a dollar to save a penny crap.

[USMCPMEL]

Skolito do you do anything but whine.......

[skolito]

Bout the same as you

[_Adam_]

So. . . . I ask this question.  Where is your career today and where would you like your career to go in the future? 

Colleen

I knew that staying on the bench would leave me feeling a bit unsatisfied considering the general lack of upward mobility outside of the AF.   So I made the jump after 8 years for a career in semi-conductor test field service.   I still use test equipment daily, and am a bit of an "equipment nazi" compared to my colleagues.   During that time (8yrs) I earned a management degree at Portland State.

In the future I would like to use my combined experiences of AF Metrology and Semi-conductor field service and my newly acquired degree.   I think that lifetime learning is very important, so whatever roles I pursue will need to be interesting and challenging.   I will also pursue post graduate studies, but I am trying to determine if I want to get an MBA, or go the engineering route since I am also interested in getting a bachelors in mechanical engineering.

- Adam