Every year, Hollywood rolls out another generation of new movies and TV shows with the same formula for more legal, medical, cop and spy dramas,and now with a mixture of crazy reality and talent shows meanwhile forgetting to showcase critical career paths that our nation's economy depends on.
Occasionally, Hollywood has showcased a few engineers and maintenance people like Barney Collier of Mission Impossible, played smoothly and elegantly by Greg Morris. This was a landmark role back in the late 60's for a minority to be depicted in a very positive light and to be the only character to play in every episode of the legendary Mission Impossible series. Recently, i downloaded these episodes from Netflix and was amazed at how the story lines from 40+ years ago and the technology held up today despite that the computers depicted were the size of refrigerators.
Also McGyver's ability to defuse a nuclear bomb with a Swiss army knife, bubble gum and a paper clip made for entertaining stories, and helped boost the curiosity of a generation of kids to consider engineering.
But for every few positive depiction our profession has been mostly ignored or ridiculed like cigarette embedded t-shirted Schneider building maintenance handyman from the late 70's series "One Day at a Time." We have also endured millions of jokes about plumber cracks and grease monkeys to the point that these negative stigmas are a core reason why despite the new realities of modern industry parents will not encourage their children to pursue these critical careers.
With the recent National Manufacturing Day October 5th, where over 250 locations opened up their doors to allow to see manufacturing in operation, these myths are being busted. But with the recent report that there are over 600,000 unfilled skilled labor jobs, despite a lackluster economy, we have to continue to battle these negative images to build future talent pools.
So I beg Hollywood again to please start creating new movies and new TV shows that accurately displays the engineering and maintenance profession so we can build a strong future workforce.