Message from the Director
As Director of The Gordon Engineering Leadership Program, I want to welcome you to this site and invite you to explore the opportunities described here. Our vision is to create a dynamic university-industry partnership which has the goal of developing the next generation of engineering leaders.
It is becoming evident through reports such as Rising Above the Gathering Storm (National Academies Press, 2005) that the US is in danger of losing its preeminence in creating advanced technology systems and products. Trained in one specialization, many of today’s engineering graduates do not have the broad background necessary to understand, take charge of, and drive a large-scale project to completion.
We need to address this education shortcoming. Aspiring engineering leaders must develop the mindset to assume full responsibility for their success and the success of their products. 
They must acquire the technical knowledge, the interpersonal skills, and the winning attitude to take their projects to successful completion. They must make the personal commitment, learn the joy of victory, and transmit this to their colleagues. An exemplar of this type of engineering leader is Bernard M. Gordon. An inventor, company founder and philanthropist, Mr. Gordon has provided us with a generous gift to establish a meaningful response to the Gathering Storm.
As a result, my colleagues and I have developed the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program. An intensive one-year course of study, the program involves ongoing mentoring with experienced practitioners. The year spent in the Gordon Program will accelerate the development of people who aspire to become engineering leaders. Normally, leadership development takes ten to fifteen years in an industrial environment, working on ever increasingly difficult programs and managing larger parts of the development process. The Gordon Engineering Leadership Program will produce candidates ready to take increased technical challenges at an accelerated pace, shortening the leadership development process by a factor of two or more. Participants in the program are designated as Gordon Fellows.
A key aspect of our approach is a real world challenge project. As indicated by our logo, this endeavor must have sufficient difficulty so that it becomes a “mountain” that each candidate successfully climbs. As a result, each Gordon Fellow has the confidence to climb the “next” mountain. This is the hallmark of the leaders who will emerge from our program!
Please take a few minutes to look at this website and inform yourself about the program. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or need further information. My door is always open!
Warm regards,
Michael
Michael B. Silevitch
Director, The Bernard M. Gordon Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging
Robert D. Black Professor of Engineering, Northeastern University
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