Teens get a week of engineering

Where are Long Island's future engineers going to come from?

Perhaps from a group of high school students who gathered Tuesday morning in an industrial building in Melville to learn what engineering is all about, under a unique program sponsored by National Grid, which has a special interest in building a technical workforce. Brian Varga, National Grid's director of U.S. technical learning development, said 45 percent of the company's engineers in the utility sector are expected to retire in the next five years.

Additionally, Varga said, the United States is expected to need 160,000 new engineers over the next decade. So National Grid this year has begun its "Engineer Pipeline Program," under which 50 high school students from New York and New England selected for their high grades take part in a one-week program each summer for the next six years.

They may be offered internships once they are enrolled in a college engineering program. On Long Island, National Grid kicked off the week Monday at its Melville Learning Center, with 13 students in attendance.

Amanda Low, 17, of Brooklyn Technical High School, tried her hand Tuesday welding two pieces of pipe together.

"This is the first time," Amanda said. "It's pretty cool." She hopes to be an environmental engineer. Christopher Torrell, 17, of William Floyd High School in Mastic Beach, said, "My dad told me people don't pay you to say this or that doesn't work. They pay you to show them how things work." He hopes to be a mechanical or power engineer.

Shane Parmassar, also 17 and of William Floyd High, said he wants to be an architect or an engineer. His parents, he said, heartily supported his decision to enter the National Grid program. "They pushed me to get the application early," he said.

Joyous Pierce, 17, of the Long Island High School for the Arts in Syosset, is a dancer, a painter and a photographer. But, she said, she liked the idea of engineering. She wants to help out with the problem of global warming.

Varga said National Grid is looking to the broader picture by hosting the program. "We're trying to solve a national crisis," he said.