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Guest Stefan Jaeger joins us to discuss the portrayal of engineers in literature and mass media.

• If his work life were a procedural crime drama, Brian’s not sure whether he’d be portrayed as a hero or a villain.
• Brian enjoyed the movies Real Genius and Sneakers for their representations of quasi-engineers.
• Our guest, Stefan Jaeger, is Managing Director of Member and Corporate Communications for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
• Stefan has been working recently on a Raise the Bar initiative that seeks to require that engineers of the future obtain a masters’ degree, or an equivalent 30 credits, to be professionally licensed.
• Our guest has also been working on Vision 2025, an effort to prepare the civil engineering profession for tomorrow’s world.
• The ASCE has partnered with the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) and the American Public Works Association (APWA) to create the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.
• ASCE’s Communications and History and Heritage programs are also under Stefan.
• Carmen had not previously heard of National Engineer’s Week, which takes place every February.
• The ASCE puts out a report card on America’s infrastructure status every four years.
• In the 1990’s, Stefan heard a repeated refrain from engineers about the lack of an engineering-based TV series similar to the popular legal drama L.A. Law.
• Stefan gives a brief outline of the plot for his book, The Jackhammer Elegies.
• Carmen jokes about the movie Live Free or Die Hard being a documentary.
• Our guest’s book recently received an S.E.T. award from the Entertainment Industries Council for “accurate and impactful entertainment portraying and promoting the fields of science, engineering, technology and math.”
• The group discusses professional licensure, as well as the inevitable tension between engineering management and engineering design.
• Stefan raises the possibility that the stereotype of a steady, grounded engineer doesn’t always mesh well with the glamorous, exciting characters that TV and movie audiences like to watch.
• Falling Down, starring Michael Douglas, tells the story of a unemployed defense engineer who goes on a violent rampage… not exactly a positive role model!
• Arlington Road reveals the fictional terrorist activities of structural engineer Oliver Lang… again, not a very positive take on the engineering profession.
• In the 2005 movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Brad Pitt plays an assassin whose cover is that of an engineer.
• Jamie Foxx plays a career-minded attorney in Law Abiding Citizen. One of the attorney’s clients, Philadelphia engineer Clyde Shelton, feels that he has been treated unfairly by the legal system, and goes on a killing spree. Notice a trend here in movies about engineers?
• A 1996 film, Ridicule, tells the story of a minor aristocrat and engineer who hopes to reduce sickness and death around mosquito-infested swamps by installing a drainage system in 18th century France. Finally, one for the good guys!
• Henry Petroski, a civil engineer, wrote To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design. We reviewed this book in Episode 18 of The Engineering Commons, which we titled “Failure.”
• Sam Florman, another civil engineer, wrote The Existential Pleasures of Engineering.
• Jeff notes how engineers fail to see the value of their non-technical work, as we discussed with James Trevelyan in Episode 19, “Value.”
• Stefan Jaeger can be reached by email: sjaeger ** at ** thejackhammerelegies ++ dot ++ com, or through a comment form at the bottom of the reviews page on his novel’s website.

Thanks to Stefan Jaeger for allowing us to use the cover of his award-winning book, “The Jackhammer Elegies” as the image for this episode. Podcast theme music provided by Paul Stevenson