Engineering Education and Practice
for the Global Community
Preparing Engineers for a Global
Workplace – CDM’s Experience
Mary Leslie
CDM University
March 17,2006
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Who is CDM?
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Employee-owned consulting,
engineering, construction and
operations firm founded in 1947 in
Boston
3,500 employees; 350 in 26 global
offices - 30 US citizens, the rest
locals
First international project in 1960
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Preparing Engineers for a Global
Workplace
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Providing opportunities to work
overseas on international projects
Networking with international staff
Learning to work overseas via OJT
Minimal training prior to overseas
assignments
Career paths and development
planning
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Preparing Engineers for a Global
Workplace (Continued)
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Corporate support for professional association
memberships and conferences; papers,
presentations, committees and boards globally
Annual technical papers awards; $5K award for
best papers
Career development/training by pre-eminent
CDM experts through CDM University
Recruiting diverse candidates from 30 US schools
including WPI!!
Providing continuing education opportunities to
meet professional license requirements
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CDM University
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CDM’s corporate university founded
in 1996
Professional training staff
Provides/supports continuing
education/training in all CDM offices
globally; all delivery methods
LMS accessible globally via internet
Training on tools and skills, in English
only
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Training Lessons Learned
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Overseas local staff are more
aggressive about accessing online
training of all kinds even on their
own time
Difficult and expensive to get visas
to bring people to US for work or
training; train overseas or do virtual
training, online or blended approach
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Global Engineering – A two-way
Street?
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US no longer produces enough
engineering grads to meet US demand
100 times more international engineering
students in US than vice versa – many are
fluent in English.
Technology transfer may be two way;
some foreign countries catching up fast
Overseas offices predominately local staff;
senior CDM engineers/project managers
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Typical Project
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PRASA Program Management Contract
- Formed CDM Caribbean
- Detailed design work must be performed
in PR largely by local engineering
resources
- Must be registered PE in PR
- Robust program for interns and coops
from 4 local PR universities required
-Technology Transfer
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