What You Really Learn in Engineering What UBC Engineering’s oldest living alumnus reveals isn’t about engineering at all.
Edward Richardson (BASC’32, PEng, BCLS) has one lesson, and it took him a lifetime to learn it. It isn’t the secret to a long life, though at 102, he’s been asked many times. “I tell people the same story: If I knew, I’d bottle it and sell it,” he says. Richardson’s footprints run from UBC, to BC’s interior region, and back to the Lower Mainland. One of five civil engineering graduates in 1932, he followed jobs to the gold mining town of Barkerville, surveying mineral claims for the Cariboo Gold Quartz Mining Company. By 1935 Richardson was commissioned as a BC land surveyor and registered as a professional engineer. He then moved to Wells where he oversaw road construction, water works, draining, and housing for mine employees. There were few engineers around, and Richardson was hired through recommendations, never through a résumé. He accepted almost everything offered. “If you wanted to earn a living, you did it,” he says. But working in isolated communities often meant practicing without reference materials or a community of engineers to share ideas. He took the theory of what he learned at UBC and “hoped you didn’t make mistakes,” he laughs. From the 1940s to his retirement in 1974, Richardson helped to develop West Vancouver and the British Pacific Properties, including projects for the Lions Gate Bridge and Park Royal Shopping Centre. In all that time, “people made the difference,” he says. “If you really want to know what you learn in engineering, it isn’t engineering at all. It’s how to treat people to get them to work for you. “It’s so simple, yet it takes so long to learn it. All you got to do is to go them and say, ‘That was a good job you did.’ And people will work so hard for you just for a bit of appreciation because it’s done so seldom in this world.” One time a consulting engineer on a project disagreed with Richardson and went over his head with a complaint. The engineer was turned around and told, “We’re going to do it Ed’s way. He’s never been wrong yet.” “I can remember several times, quite a few times in my life when I’ve heard the boss say something very nice about me,” Richardson says. “You still remember it. And you remember just thinking ‘Gosh, I’d do anything for that guy, if he appreciates what I’m doing for him.’ And if you want to make a success, appreciate the people
underneath you. Let them have the same feeling for you, because they’ll make you more than you make yourself. “A bit of appreciation. Not only do you need it, but you must learn to pass it on to other people.” This is Ed’s way. He’s never been wrong yet.
Contributor: Jeffrey Hsu May 2012