U.S. Presidents Who Were Engineers

As both inventor, and engineer, I agree that inventing is more of an art than engineering. Patents even mention art in their text, "person skilled in the art".

But there is certainly art, and creativity, in engineering, in many ways.

Using acoustics engineering as an example, there's a ton of black art in the science of sound and vibration. Maybe even a little downright black magic!

Looking at much of the surveying work done in early years, I'd say most of them liked to pull on the jug as much as run a rod, perch or chain down the line.

'... most of them liked to pull on the jug as much as run a rod, perch or chain down the line....'

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Oh, that's a relief. I've always held out hope that liquor had more to compete with than just 'a frontal lobotomy'. _{....not that I haven't attended the competitions myself...it's just that I can never remember who won, though I'm usually certain it wasn't me.}

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

"I drink to make it fair for you guys!"

Are the Engineers good politicians?.

Hear! Hear!

Are you putting these presidents (excluding Hoover and Carter) in the same catagory as degreed engineers? Do they deserve the title of "engineer" even if they didn't attend and graduate from a college?

Carter graduated from the US Naval academy and later went to graduate school for nuclear engineering and reactor physics.

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Hoover graduated from Stanford.

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Are we still maintaining that 'there are no bad questions'?

Oops! I realize now that I read too quickly and missed the 'except' part. Sorry about that.

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Thought this was another baseless rant against perceived enemies of the state (though Hoover would have made an unusual addition to this usual list).

I hope you weren't confusing Herbert Hoover with J. Edgar Hoover.

Nope. Herbert Hoover graduated from Stanford, even though he never attended high school.

I just thought this was a fun way to tie in President's Day.

Anyway, a degree doesn't make an engineer. My grandfather worked his way up through GE after leaving the military and wound up doing a lot of design and repair for power transformers. He traveled all over the world and continued consulting after he retired. He didn't have any college education.

I realize things are a little different today, but I would say education loans and opportunities were not as accessible in the 1700s to mid-1900s as they are today.

I agree with Savvy.

My feeling is that many who attended and graduated from a college do not deserve the tittle of engineer, even though they may have a piece of paper declaring that they are one.

There are also many competent "engineers" who, for many reasons, may not have finished (or even attended) college.

Happily, the elitist attitude you have is not shared by everyone.

You mis-judged me as being elitist. I went to college, but never graduated. I worked all my life in an engineering environment and performed equally if not better than many "degreed" engineers. At the naval architecture firm I worked for for 30 years, I was regarded as an engineer and treated as such.

There was a guy working there from Russia who "claimed" he had a degree from MIT (Moscow Institute of Technology), but said he had to flee Russia without the paper. (very convenient excuse). He was no more an engineer than the Pope is Jewish.

My reply to this blog was in response to "presidents who were engineers", not presidents who were surveyors or inventors. If surveyors and inventors were intended to be included, they should have been so noted.

Sorry I misjudged you. Happy to hear that you did well without that piece of paper.

It is experience that counts. How many of us who are qualified engineers are able to use what was taught in engineering colleges?. It was all theoretical knowledge from books. I was lucky that I did my Production engineering course started by British engineer Mr.Alex Miller who was G.M with Voltas. Course content was Production Processes, Tool Engineering, Machine Tools, Inspection & Quality Control, General Management etc. It was very practical engineering course and well received by industry. So the persons with long working experience are real engineers compared college educated engineers.