Abstract :
Timing is everything. Five years ago this month, I drafted an article for IEEE Spectrum on the need for thousands of new engineers in the U.S. auto industry, as many of its white-collar employees approached retirement. Then the industry went off a cliff. Years of mismanagement and the severe impact of the Great Recession led to the 2009 bankruptcy and federally backed restructuring of General Motors and Chrysler. The article never ran.
