Forty years ago we placed the first man on the moon. President Kennedy started this Herculean effort not because it was easy, but because it was hard! Major technology efforts are usually very difficult and often have low probabilities of success. Does that mean that we should avoid them?
In order to create more jobs for the United States in the future, employers need to spend a lot more on cultivating technical talent. Instead of taking the easy route of farming out our R&D, scientific, engineering and technical jobs to India and China, we need to refocus our efforts here. For example, a lot more needs to be spent on internal retraining at companies and on assisting the public sector on improving our math, science, engineering and technology educational programs.
When the Japanese first entered the semiconductor market, they didn’t have any proven semiconductor manufacturing expertise. Instead they retrained top manufacturing people from other industries such as steel, who had already proven themselves in manufacturing, but lacked the specific industry acumen. Instead, our multinationals lay off key talent from dying industries while recruiting in their growing ones. We need to learn from the Japanese lessons of the past and place more emphasis on retraining our proven workers for growing new fields. This may be difficult and costly, but the long-term benefits to this country are exponential. If we outsource all of our technical expertise, we will soon be a second-rate power with no ability to manufacture our own planes, tanks and armaments in time of war. We need to act now before it is too late!
