Ensuring Relevance: How ATMAE Keeps Applied Engineering Programs Aligned with Industry Needs

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today we have the chair of the Board of Directors for the Association of Technology Management and Applied Engineering, Walt Pozgay. Welcome.

Walt Pozgay: Thank you. It’s exciting to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. For folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about ATMAE? How are you serving folks?

Walt Pozgay: Okay, so ATMAE is an organization that goes back to the 1960s. We were actually founded in 1967 as Nate. It was for applied Engineering and Industrial Arts, and in 2008 we changed to the Association of Technology Management and Applied Engineering because we noticed that the applied engineering side of our of our organization wasn’t the public didn’t know that much about us. So we started to push that side of it a little bit harder. We are a, uh, we are a certification organization or an accreditation organization. We accredit technology programs at the universities for undergraduate as well as graduate and doctoral programs. We, uh, are certified by the Council of Higher Education Accreditation. So the watchers are being watched. And what we do is we go in and make sure that applied engineering programs and management programs for technical managers are current and up to date and applicable and useful for industry.

Lee Kantor: So you’re working primarily with universities to make sure that their programs are kind of putting out the people doing the right things.

Walt Pozgay: That’s correct. Well, we have three major pillars. We have an academic pillar, which is again, the the accreditation side, where we’re making sure that the programs are not only high quality, but they are constantly maintaining themselves. They it’s not a plug and go. They have to they have to do have a, an improvement loop so that they’re constantly listening to industry and making sure that their training becomes that remains relevant and up to date. We also have a certification process where we provide eight different certifications for industry. And then we have the industry side, which is kind of the voice of the customer. So we have a lot of industry members that, um, they’re not academics, but they speak for their industries and make sure that they’re guiding the overall organization in the right direction.

Lee Kantor: So you’re trying to close the loop, and each of the constituents are people that, um, have to kind of pay attention to each other, talk to each other and communicate what their needs are and how best to serve them.

Walt Pozgay: That’s correct. So we’re making sure that industry gets the employees they need and that the universities, um, are keeping themselves current with the programs that they’re presenting.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you finding, um, lately more demand for these kind of certifications that maybe bypassed some of the universities and folks are just trying to get certified on their own, um, rather than go through the whole college experience?

Walt Pozgay: No. Um, not so much that what we’re finding, however, is that applied engineers are finally coming into their own. Um, a lot of companies who have been very engineering centric where they, they feel you have to have an actual engineering degree, uh, are starting to realize that applied engineers, uh, have their place, and it’s a bigger place than a lot of companies thought. Uh, so the people that are actually, uh, putting in your assembly lines and the people that are, uh, helping maintenance maintain your lines and so forth. People with a more practical, uh, application sense of the engineering programs, um, they’re starting to become more recognized in the industry. Um, certification isn’t an end around in our case, uh, it’s, uh, it’s a way of demonstrating that the person has the knowledge that the program, uh, was supposed to provide.

Lee Kantor: So people who are doing engineering or applied engineering work have to have a college degree like that’s that’s non-negotiable.

Walt Pozgay: Uh, it’s. Yeah. Well, it’s a it’s it’s not non-negotiable, but it, uh, it’s an entry. It’s an entry that hasn’t been largely recognized by industry for a while. Um, they they again, we’re looking back at companies that have been around a long time, and they see the engineer as the the key technical person and nothing against engineers, but they have a different responsibility. The applied engineer, it’s more about taking that science and taking that technology and putting it to work. And a lot of the more formal engineering programs, uh, they do a great job of preparing engineers for the theoretical side, but not so much for the practical side. And so what our folks do is they come in and they they’re working engineers. They they they’re quality engineers. They’re manufacturing engineers, they’re advanced manufacturing engineers, those kinds of roles.

Lee Kantor: So but they’re the ones that are in the organization, you know, with their sleeves rolled up, actually doing some of the work where they’re they’re testing if those theories are are applicable in real, real life. Right.

Walt Pozgay: And they’re applying them and then they’re, they’re working through the problems that come about when theory actually has to go to work.

Lee Kantor: Now and then. How do you get that feedback back to the people who are doing the educating?

Walt Pozgay: So, uh, one of the requirements of our program is that, uh, or of our accreditation is that every program that’s accredited has to have an industrial, uh, support group, uh, to feed back that information. They have to have a, uh, Are they have to have? Uh. I’m sorry. The word is, is.

Lee Kantor: There has to be some sort of a feedback loop, right? Where the the knowledge kind of that is happening with the boots on the ground are actually kind of getting back to the people who are teaching the next group of people that are going to be doing that kind of work.

Walt Pozgay: That’s correct. And so every the a requirement to get our accreditation is you have to have an advisory board, and it has to be manned by people who are in industry, and they have to approve any changes to the program. They also recommend changes to the program so that that is constantly being evaluated. We’re we’re constantly polling our graduates. We’re constantly polling our the the folks that hire our graduates and those, uh, those feedbacks come back to inform the programs. Uh, and it’s a requirement. It’s not a nice to have. In order for you to keep your accreditation, you have to demonstrate that you are asking and that you are also responding to the feedback.

Lee Kantor: So how do you stay, um, nimble and and current with the, the speed that’s occurring in kind of these industries right now especially, you know, with the advent of all this new technology and artificial intelligence. Like, how do you kind of stay ahead?

Walt Pozgay: And that’s the key point of having the advisory boards. The advisory boards function as the voice of the customer to Atmae, who then goes back to the programs and helps those programs advance their, uh, their technology and advance their, um, their, their, their modernness, the modernity. They, uh, and that’s why it’s, that’s that’s the whole reason of having those advisory boards as a requirement so that they can be nimble.

Lee Kantor: Do they see them as kind of a necessary evil? Like are they kind of are they open to it like, oh, thank you. Where you been all my life? Or is it like, oh great, I got to make another change. And now this is how I do things.

Walt Pozgay: Oh no. No, it’s it’s much more the former than the latter. I mean, obviously it’s hard to stay current, but if you don’t, first of all, if you don’t and your program becomes irrelevant, it doesn’t stay around very long. Um, but the big thing is that the the goal is to get our students hired and working. It’s not just to provide them with education, it’s to provide them with a meaningful path to a career. And so if we aren’t producing students that have the skills that our, uh, industry is requiring, then we’re just wasting time. So it is not considered a necessary evil. It’s much more considered a partnership. Uh, the advisory boards are often staffed by graduates. So they know the programs. They know the professors they’re feeding back. Say, look, this is what I learned, and I didn’t really need it. So how about you take this out of the program and put this in instead? And it’s it’s this constantly evolving, constantly improving program.

Lee Kantor: So as the leader or one of the leaders in the organization, how do you kind of keep everybody, um, focused on that, that objective and being clear on how they have to work together? Like you said, this isn’t a nice to have. This is a must have. And people have to kind of embrace the change. Or is that just the folks that are attracted to engineering and applied engineering? They have that mindset anyway.

Walt Pozgay: Uh, it’s probably a little bit of both. Um, you know, our, our accreditation board is, is a is an autonomous board. I have no control over them. They control the accreditation process. Uh, and the the requirements for accreditation are quite clear. Uh, so what we do is, uh, when you get your program accredited, it’s accredited for three years. Um, at the end of three years, you go through a re-accreditation process, and, uh, it’s a site visit a team of 3 or 4, depending on the size of the program. We, uh, we will come to your site. You will submit a, a self-evaluation of your program based on the standards. Um, and then we will visit and make sure that what you said in your self-evaluation is, in fact, represented in reality. And then, uh, that’s one of the things we do at our conference. I’m actually at our conference right now. Uh, one of the main things that happens at our annual conference is the accreditation board meets and decides yes or no on continuing to accredit your program.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you finding that young people are attracted to engineering and applied engineering? Or is there something that you really have to, um, you know, work on to get more young people going down this path?

Walt Pozgay: I think, uh, they’ve they’ve always been attracted to it to some degree. Uh, I think we’re actually seeing a higher level of attraction, um, because of the hands on element and the, the relevance of the of the work. Again, I’m not in any way putting down pure engineering, but the work that an engineer does that an engineering technologist or graduate can’t do is pretty small. And it’s very high level science. And, um, the people that we’re working with are taking that high level science and putting it to work. And most of them have. Most of the people in our programs have that mindset that they want it to work, they want to go to work and they want to put it to use. And I think we’re seeing some growth in our student population. Our we have a lot of students here at our conference every year, but I think we’ve got one of the biggest groups of students that we’ve had in a while this year. Um, and that’s a good thing. That’s our future.

Lee Kantor: Now is there you mentioned a lot, obviously, about your work with colleges and universities. Does is some of the work kind of trickle down into the high schools, middle schools, so that you can, you know, keep the pipeline filled?

Walt Pozgay: Uh, we as an organization don’t get involved in the high school and middle schools. Uh, there are programs out there, um, that do, uh, and we’re a fairly small organization. We are growing, um, but, uh, there has been discussion about how we start increasing our reach. We just haven’t we haven’t pursued that yet.

Lee Kantor: And then the programs are the engineering degrees and the applied engineering degrees. Are there more of those kind of bubbling up in universities or are they kind of staying the same? Uh, like, is there growth in more colleges and universities offering a wider and wider variety of engineering and applied engineering degrees?

Walt Pozgay: There, there tends to be a growth of schools that already have engineering programs investigating having applied engineering programs.

Lee Kantor: So this is a new area. I mean, it’s obviously not a new area, but it’s an area where now colleges are saying, hey, maybe we should be kind of investing in this.

Walt Pozgay: Right. There are there are an increasing number of universities that are who have already got an engineering programs in place that are recognizing, um, the industrial need for, um, more practical, uh, more practical skill set. And so they are investigating, um, these newer having these, uh, applied engineering programs.

Lee Kantor: And then these applied engineering programs, they can’t just be taught by the person that’s doing the engineering. You need a different kind of professional in order to execute, um, the applied.

Walt Pozgay: No, it’s more like having a slightly different curriculum.

Lee Kantor: Oh, so it’s a curriculum change, not.

Walt Pozgay: A curriculum change, right? So we still have we still have engineering classes. Um, but we also have management classes. We also have, um, we also have practical classes. For instance, one of our universities, the students, when they graduate from their program, they have a FANUC phonics certification, which means they can program a Fanuc robot. Um, and to the point where Fanuc will actually give them a certification. So it’s more of they don’t spend the time in the higher level maths and the higher level sciences, uh, applying the theory. It’s more about spending time in a fluid power class and spending time in a mechanics class and spending it spending time on a PLC class. Um, and so it’s not that they can’t be taught by the same instructors that they tend not to be, because it’s an instructors with different skill sets.

Lee Kantor: But does it require then the university to then invest in labs and have stuff there?

Walt Pozgay: Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, and that’s actually part of the accreditation requirement is that they not only have labs, but the labs be relevant and kept.

Lee Kantor: Current.

Walt Pozgay: Functioning and kept current and kept modern. Yes.

Lee Kantor: And then do you? Is that something you help them with? Or you just tell them this is a requirement so they have to figure it out? Or like, do you have maybe partners with some of the manufacturers of these equipment so they can, you know, either donate or, you know, offer to them so they can practice on the stuff that they’re going to end up working on.

Walt Pozgay: That’s done at the college level and at the university level and the program level. Um, that’s not something that May specifically does. Uh, but again, that’s a function of the, of having an advisory board is that this advisory board is going to be made up of the people that are close to your university, close to your program. They’re the people that are hiring your your graduates, and they have a vested interest in making sure that those graduates are the kinds of people they want to hire, and then they therefore get involved with things like providing equipment and so forth.

Lee Kantor: Right. Because it’s in it’s in everybody’s best interest to give the student the most current equipment, and it helps the the student learn on the equipment they’re going to end up working on when they graduate. So it’s like a win win all the way around. So I mean, so you’re kind of making recommendations or giving them guidelines to follow and then the university, then in their local market kind of partners with the people that are appropriate in the local market.

Walt Pozgay: That’s exactly right. We we provide the guidelines, we provide the the rules essentially, and put the guardrails up. And then we let the universities do the work that they need to do to meet those requirements and maintain their accreditation.

Lee Kantor: Well, your work is so important. Is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates how, um, you know, when a university or like the importance of kind of I don’t want to say this is a pivot, but it’s definitely a kind of a broadening of, um, of how the university is thinking a little bit about leaning more into the applied side of things. Can you talk about how that has made an impact when they did that? Like did they graduate more people or more opportunities or the industries happier they got, you know, more of the workers filled?

Walt Pozgay: I guess a good way to to answer that is, um, I’m I’m not going to use the company’s name, but there is a company with whom I’m familiar that has historically not even interviewed applied engineers. And, uh, they, they want strictly, uh, you know, certified engineers from from certified, uh, engineering programs. And last year, this company made a pivot and actually started actively seeking out, um, applied engineering graduates and opening up their, their recruiting. And they have found, uh, it’s, you know, it’s been a much more successful recruiting tool. Uh, and they’ve actually developed and applied engineering development program for their company. So not only are they shifting from we don’t hire these people to yes, we’ll interview them. They’re actively seeking them now and bringing them into the jobs that, uh, that typically had been held by formal engineers, freeing up the formal engineers to do the more theoretical and higher level work that that they’re trained to do.

Lee Kantor: Now, is that one of kind of the things on your plate or leadership’s plate in terms of explaining to industry why it might be a good idea to to kind of open up your mind to applied engineering degree folks. And then also you have to kind of convince the universities to, um, you know, kind of have the degree so that they can get the training from the industry so that more people in the industry. So it’s like kind of a chicken and egg thing.

Walt Pozgay: Uh, yeah. It is a little bit of a chicken and egg. Um, uh, what am is, is working very hard to do is to get, uh, to get people who typically don’t hire applied engineers to understand their value. Um, and we’ve like I said, we’ve been around since the late 60s. Um, and it’s been a, it’s we have companies that have had partnerships with us for years and years, and we have other companies that still haven’t really heard about what we do. So we have been really focused on getting our name out there. We’ve been working with other organizations, uh, tag teaming, you know, they come to our conference, we go to theirs, that kind of thing, to, uh, to get the word out. Um, but largely what’s happening is industry is starting to push for it. Industry is starting to push. They’re having they’re having to push to the universities and say, hey, we aren’t getting the people we need and these are the people we need. And it so happens that the people they need are the people that we serve.

Lee Kantor: But so now, are you all on the same page that you can work together and, you know, kind of have some more synergy when it comes to this because it seems like they need you to to get the curriculum certified. But they, you know, if they are not aware or they’re not seeing the impact, then they might be hesitant or slow to ask for folks with that type of a degree. So I mean, to me, it both sides of the equation have to be dealt with. But um, I’m just trying to get like, how how do like what do you need more of? So you need more people in industry to say, hey, we need more applied engineers, so go make them for me. And then if you think that if by doing that, then the universities will go to you and say, hey, help us, you know, uh, graduate more applied engineers.

Walt Pozgay: Uh, yeah. Uh, that’s a really complex question. Um, really, it’s it’s getting, uh, the applied engineering programs that are out there to, to, uh, become accredited because there are applied engineering programs out there that are not accredited at all or accredited by us. There are, um, they could be accredited elsewhere. But, um, it’s industry recognizing the value of accreditation and the value of certification, um, is probably it’s very important. Um, and it’s, it’s some of the more important work that we’re doing is to sell that, to, uh, sell that to the industry, to get them to understand that, um. Industry is going to hire what they need to hire.

Lee Kantor: Right? Yeah. They got a problem to solve.

Walt Pozgay: Right. And and so that’s almost a natural feedback loop. You know, if you have a program that isn’t graduating people that are getting jobs, then you’re going to find that out. Um, what we provide is the the mechanism by which you can track your program to make sure that it is meeting the requirements. That’s the biggest benefit of having accreditation through us is by meeting the accreditation standards you have in place, a process of ensuring that your program remains relevant and that your graduates are graduates are going into the kinds of jobs that that they want to do and that the industry needs to have filled.

Lee Kantor: And then a student that’s interested in this, if they’re given a choice between an accredited university and a non-accredited, I’m sure they’re going to err on the side of accredited.

Walt Pozgay: Well, we would we would encourage them to. Yes. Because a non-accredited program means that the university’s deciding what that needs to be. And maybe they’re right and maybe they’re not. Whereas if you’re accredited, particularly through Atmae, then you have been through that program, has been through a vetting process, and we know that it is successful and we are ensuring that it remains successful. Uh, as long as the university continues to follow the requirements of the accreditation.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what do you need more of? So you need more conversations with folks in the industry, and you need, um, more conversations with universities. Um, those are the two kind of big buckets for you.

Walt Pozgay: Right? We need what we need is we need more conversations between universities and industry. Um, and we facilitate those. Uh, like I said, we’re at our conference right now, so we have we have about 300 educators, students and, and, uh, industry professionals that are all mingling together downstairs doing listening to talks and listening to paper presentations and watching student robotics competitions and those kinds of things. Uh, so we have, uh, that we facilitate that. But what we’re really trying to get industry to understand is the value of saying we want our graduates to come from an accredited program. Uh, and we think the accreditation process produces a good product.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more about Apma, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect with you or somebody on the team?

Walt Pozgay: Uh, you can go to. Uh, there is a, um, About Us tab that shows all of the members of the board of directors, and all of us have emails posted right there. You can reach out to us directly. You can reach out to our, uh, office and, uh, we have, uh, some folks that can put you in touch with whoever you need to be put in touch with. Uh, so, yeah, we’re we’re out there, and we’re, we’re very interested in and making these connections and getting to know people.

Lee Kantor: Well. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Walt Pozgay: Thank you very much.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Association Leadership Radio.