After what feels like years of listening to people bemoaning the lack of ‘new blood’ entering the tunnelling industry, it is extremely refreshing to see more and more initiatives emerging to draw younger engineers into the activities of our tunnelling societies and associations. The lack of younger engineers attending key tunnelling events has long been a predicament, the obvious problems being lack of encouragement, time and financial support. Thankfully, the message that those best placed to address these issues are employers themselves, finally seems to be getting through.

With some encouragement from national and international associations and event organisers, numerous incentives from student sponsorship programmes to young engineer awards have now been established. Amongst the most notable of these are the Rapid Excavation and Tunneling Conference (RETC) Student Fund in the US, the British Tunnelling Society’s Harding Prize Award and the International Tunnelling Association’s (ITA) Master Course.

The RETC Student Conference Fund was launched in 2003 to provide financial support for students interested in an underground-related career to attend the event. Scholarships were offered to students enrolled in full-time courses (civil engineering, mining engineering, etc.). Recipients were awarded roundtrip airfares, conference registration, hotel accommodation and tickets to attend social events. Thanks to generous donations from companies such as Atkinson Construction, Jacobs Associates, Kenny, Kiewit, JF Shea and Traylor Brothers, the scheme was extremely successful, with 10 students receiving scholarships. Once again the RETC organisers are on the look out for sponsors for 2005, so if you want to put your money where your mouth is, contact Peg Coniglio (tel: +1 303 948 4214).

Back on home soil, 28 February 2005 sees the deadline for next year’s Harding Prize Competition, organised bi-annually by the British Tunnelling Society. This year sees the onus on entry by any tunnelling engineer aged 33 or under (at the end of 2004). Basically, the BTS requires an original paper that relates to any aspect of tunnelling. The winner will receive a number of prizes, including a cheque for £500. Runners up receive a cheque for £100, and all entrants who submit papers to an approved standard will receive a cheque for £50, a year’s free membership to the Society and publication of their paper in T&T International. So, if you’re a senior engineer, start encouraging your younger team members – 3000-5000 words is all we need (email: bts@ice.org.uk for details).

OK, this is just a handful of examples, but you get the point. To bring in the young, the more established must do their part in the encouragement process. Instead of spinning yarns of working 23 hours a day, 12 weeks on/two days off when you started out of collage, get your heads together and start thinking about how you can really help to bring fresh blood into our industry.

We all know its more fun that a career in IT, lets just get the message across!

Tris Thomas