I was working at AMP as a machine design engineer during the Allied Signal buyout attempt, and made it through the Tyco buyout. I watched all our great benefits go to pot... Christmas bonus, Thanksgiving dinners, Gift Catalogs, all that and more went out the door when the name on the sign changed. I started at American Avenue as an MTM-IV, and when I left for PPG, I was a Machine design Engineer II. For Tyco, I made machines to do sockets for PC caching, processor sockets, and DIMM modules while in the Global PC Business Unit, and was making MTA Headers, and consumer goods connectors at 8010 Piedmont Triad Parkway when I left 7 years later.

I bet your F-I-L was in the plant off I-85 near 26, huh? I sent 2 lines to that plant when it opened years ago. The Automotive Group has 3 plants left that I know about - the plant your F-I-L was at, Pegg Rd, and Gumtree Rd - both in Greensboro. We did work for all the OEM's. Most of the harnesses were laced and terminated in Hermosillo, Mexico, but the connectors, housings, and contacts were all stamped and molded up here in the Carolinas.

Tyco is still a big employer in the Winston-Salem, Greensboro area, but not like they used to be. Used to be a great company.

Sorry to hear of the bad luck - seriously. Now concentrate on making it into a positive for you both. Find something better.

Like jg95z28 said, if you or your F-I-L are willing to pick up and move, there are some prospects up in this area too. Honda Jet is gearing up in Greensboro, so is the new Fed-Ex hub, Nonni's is looking for folks, etc. Things is, you have to be politically correct while being very aggresive - you need to set yourself above the rest of the players somehow. Go for what you want, and go after it with zest, but not obsessively to the point where you scare away the recruiter.

Best of luck to you both!

 

You are not alone, I am in exactly the same boat and while my money is holding out fine I am growing very worried about future job prospects in this field. My outlook now is that I will probably have to take a low level position in a different specialty if I want to have any hope of working in engineering again this year, since nothing I have read (and I've read a lot) indicates that commercial real estate is even close to hitting a bottom. With shopping centers & malls going belly-up nobody in their right mind will break ground on any new construction, even if they could get financing (which they can't) when they can buy foreclosed or stressed property at 50 cents or so on the dollar and toss a few grand into refurbishments. These remodels are keeping my prior employer afloat, since they are primarily architectural design. My former civil practice is reduced to nothing even though I was still promised my job was safe up to the very end.

Sorry to hijack but had to reach out to a comrade in the biz. I am not sleeping too well myself. Our field was fed by the bubble even though it was never really lucrative on our end like it was for the developers & financers, and now it's a very gloomy, depressing place to be. I have been in this field quite awhile but apparantly it wasn't long enough to develop a decent enough point of reference to realize just how unsustainable the good times were. Again sorry to hijack and whine but it is good to know there are others out there who are feeling it too.

 

I agree with everything you said and have told others the same myself. There has been ONE civil site design posting in my area in the past 7 months and it's for part time only, no benefits. Something like 70 people applied for it We "did it to ourselves." We overbuilt. BEFORE the recession hit, there were empty NEW strip shopping centers here and new ones still being built next door or down the road.

Yes, that's exactly it!!! Want to hear a real kick in the ***? Her parents sold their house of like 20 something years and MOVED to Greensboro for a transfer within Tyco. The *******s laid him off after only a little over a year. He was 2 years from retirement If they were to move now they would lose their *** on their brand new mcmansion home, which is paid for, but they would lose a lot of money. Her mom still works and makes OK money, plus to the best of my knowledge, they have no other debt, cars are paid for, etc...

Sorry for the negativity, just trying to be realistic. I've had quite a few interviews with the DOT and the county and state are FINALLY starting to post positions I would be qualified for. I'm trying to get a state/county/city/DOT job because that's all I can seem to find that doesn't want 10+years of experience and a PE (took the test, don't know if I passed yet.)

I'm not willing to relocate (yeah, I know that sounds dumb, but hear me out.) My wife and I love this area. My wife is a vet and her job pays about 10K more per year than my job did, and I did OK. Her job is more than safe, the vet that owns the practice is moving toward more of a "retirement role" where he only works about 3 days a week. She can become a partner in less than a year (I think.) So we are more than fine on money. We also have NO credit card debt and NO car payments!

We just bought our first home and we are getting the 8K first time home buyer money. It's like 2400sf on an acre of land (RARE in this area) and it's NOT in an HOA, on a quiet circle road, and we got one hell of a deal on it and 4.375% interest rate and NO PMI. I have a large group of friends here, the house is 4 miles from my wifes job and only minutes from any store or eatery we could possibly want to go to, only 15 mins from downtown greenville, less than 30 from spartanburg, and about 45 mins from Anderson. Really good location for me to get a job just about anywhere in the upstate. I just need to hold on. I'm a lot happier than I make out. I have a gorgeous wife that loves me, two great dogs, great friends, and a ****load of cool toys to play with (trucks, boat, lawnmower ).

I'm currently really busy doing a mild interior renovation on the new house. I HOPE to get a county or DOT job, decent pay, great benefits, no weekends, and I can work my way up, at most CE private firms in greenville, there are already so many PE's, there's really nowhere to go "ladder-wise."

Sorry that got long, but thanks for the well wishes and sorry for the thread jack

 

Silverado, being newer to the field you are in a better position than many, including me. I am one of those PE's with experience in the nine year range so not too many are going to be willing to take a chance on me outside of my immediate field of expertise. I lost my job to someone with less than half my skill & experience because there's no need for advanced design skills. When all you need is an occasional concept sketch there isn't much need for a PE. And any potential employers in the geotech, hydrology or transportation fields assume (rightly I might add) that I would jump ship as soon as things open back up in development, so I am not considered a particularly desirable candidate . My best prospect right now is the Downtown Development Director of a local municipality. The job is part time (ie no benefits) and pay is not quite half of what I made two years ago. Thankfully I have been frugal enough in my decision making that I could survive on that much and keep the bills paid. But man it really sucks to get your degree & license and devote almost a decade to develop a skill set that is now completely irrelevant. Life can sure turn on a dime, this time last year my biggest problem was trying to decide on a color for my new 2010 SS. Luckily I saw the writing on the wall quite awhile back and had a nice safety net in place when the axe finally fell, but if you're in free fall then no cushion no matter how big will do much good when you hit the ground.

 

Very sorry to hear that. I'm really hoping things turn around for all of the good people who have lost their jobs.

 

I'm a casualty of the auto industry as well. I was working for Avery Dennison at a plant that produced interor laminates for cars. I was laid off awhile ago, but as of Sept. they will be ending ALL automotive production.

What was the vehicle voucher? Did Chrysler cover the entire cost of a new car, or was it just seriously discounted? Can't argue with picking up that Challenger though! Even my wife thinks they are hot....

 

Not to bring up a depressing thread, but GE is building a research facility near Detroit bringing quite a few engineering jobs back.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_221494.html

I worked at a similar facility in upstate NY and it was a blast. The atmosphere there is very academic rather than corporate, but there's still obviously good money for research.

Anyways, thought I'd post this incase anyone up there looking for a job had not seen it.

 

UPDATE!!

See this link:

http://www.cz28.com/forums/showthread.php?t=707161

 

link isn't working

 

Really?
It works for me.

Anyone else having a problem with it?

 

Doesn't work for me either.

 

Works for me, although when it opens in a new tab I'm not signed in. Can still read it though.

Good luck in Syracuse ... any old connections there to maybe give you a head start?

 

link works for me.


hope everything works out.