MSW Management | Editorial

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By John Trotti

It was one of those phone conference things to assess the status of SWANA’s The Lanny & Kay Hickman Intern Program (in honor of the organization’s founding executive director), and in making the point about the need for well-trained newcomers to the solid waste field, Lanny Hickman reminded us that many engineering schools around the country were having trouble attracting qualified students from the nation’s secondary schools. He went on to say that many of the slots were being filled by foreign students—who were as apt to take themselves and their education back to their homelands, where their skills were eagerly sought.

I sat there as close to silent as I can be when my favorite editorial subject is being discussed. In fact, my only comment alluded to the fact that the number of foreign students was actually on the decline—a function partly of increased Homeland Security restrictions, but also the result of better educational opportunities elsewhere in the world.

That’s as far as I went at that moment, but the brief encounter rekindled all my deep-seated fears and concerns for the future of our precious institutions and the vital infrastructures that underlie them...waste management high on the list.
Before I mount my soapbox in this arena, I want to make clear that I think the nation today is on-balance better than the one in which I became an adult a half-century ago. While it’s easy to point out some glaring warts in our actions over that period, they are in my humble opinion minuscule compared with what we have accomplished with our incredible wealth in material and philosophical resources. In fact, I shudder to think what others in the world might have done had they been in our position in the wake of World War II, having essentially the unopposed power to do anything we chose.

Yet for all of this, we now find ourselves in many respects on the outside looking in to a world seething with change of which we are neither the agent nor, all too often, even a participant. Just why this is is a subject for another day. What we can and must do about it can’t wait that long.

Gearing Up for Battle
We’ve all seen the bumper sticker, “Think globally; act locally,” and, depending on the vehicle and its state of repair, wondered perhaps what the driver specifically had in mind. Well, no sticker here, but for some in waste management the situation must feel a little like a rusty VW van in need of a valve job. The competition for qualified people at every level, as well you know, is fierce, and hardly likely to get better in the days and years to come. Thus, it’s high time for those of us involved in waste management to focus not merely our attention but a goodly portion of our pocketbooks on the human resource challenges we face.

It is my earnest belief that there is—and has been for some time—a disconnect between much of our education system and the genuine needs of the society it presumes to serve...but that and $5 at your favorite coffee emporium is good for 10 minutes of “experience” and a throw-away cup. To have a real impact, we need to band together and demand a higher level of performance from a system so crucial to our future.

For years I’ve felt powerless in the face of the enormity of the situation and slunk away with my tail between my legs. “It’s just too large,” I’ve consoled myself, and turned my efforts to less challenging pursuits. But while Lanny Hickman was voicing his disappointment, it dawned on me that if MSW Management didn’t step up to the plate, who would?

Granted this soapbox is too small to amount to anything in and of itself, but the forum in which it stands isn’t—not if we choose to become involved—and that’s what MSW Management intends to promote.

Starting with our July/August issue, we are going to provide just such a forum. At the outset we will ask selected members of our Editorial Advisory Board to elaborate on the workforce issues they see before us, but thereafter we will throw the forum open to the rest of our readership, asking you to contribute your five-bucks’ worth. We will select representative responses for publication in the magazine, but we will present all responses in a special department on our Web site. Look for definitive details of the program in the May/June Editor’s Comments.

We’re not asking you to storm the Bastille, march in the streets, or come up with the answer, because there is no one answer. Success, as I see it, lies in the awareness that we all have a role to play in our own communities. If we succeed at the local level, the cosmos will feel the effect.

MSW - March/April 2007