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[QUOTE=onewhippedpuppy;4815168]Souk, any suggestions as to where to look? It would take a pretty impressive offer to make me move (at least right now), my family is pretty settled and I don't want to do that to them.
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Well, you won't be making VP money anytime soon given your years of experience and lack of industry experience, but I would guess that you'll make more money than you are or will be in short time if you prove yourself a quick learner and a self-motivator. I know that's what every industry expects, but the reality is that these qualities do not exist in a large percentage of professionals.
Someone in your shoes should be able to sell yourself to an operating company or a consulting company that provides services to pipeline operating companies to get a project engineering position or similar. The fact that you have aerospace experience and I believe some project engineering and management skills would make for a good project engineer where you will work closely with a project manager who will provide the industry knowledge to get you started on projects. Most engineering on the project level is what I would call cross-industry similar. You research solutions usings provided specs of the client or the company. Using your engineering creativity and the direction of a seasoned project manager you can start to show your value while learning. If your are eager and can show dedication you will progress quickly. I've trained guys with those qualities and they are now indispensable to the companies they work for. But not all of them are fast risers.
If you want to really learn the ropes you can start as a field engineer for a pipeline company. There you will work closely with operation techs and construction contractors in addition to making engineering decisions based on company specs. Once you're in, there are many directions to grow within an operating company. You probably have a broad understanding of all things mechanical and some electrical and computer knowledge. You should be able to sell yourself if you know what the employer is looking for.
I would search career building for "pipeline" "field engineer" or "project engineer" for companies like (in no particular order) Transco, Williams, El Paso, Kinder Morgan, Questar, Panhandle Eastern, Transcanada, Mark West, Texas Eastern, Oneoak, Northern Border, Mustang, Alliance, Paragon, Universal, etc...just Google pipeline, natural gas, oil, companies. Do it in Yahoo Finance and learn about the companies, their news articles will lead you to other related companies. I seem to recall a couple of very profitable companies in the plain states that was paying their field engineers $80K+. CNN Money has an article 6-8 months ago about the top 25 companies to work for and one of those was a natural gas and oil company in the plain states. The name escapes me right now, but I think you get the idea on what to search for.
The thing about the pipeline industry as I mentioned before is that pipelines criss-cross America and there are officies all over, so you can compromise while you are new and settle for a job that is close to where you want to be.
If you are serious about getting into the industry and want to get more info, PM me.
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