An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

80A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILA further change occurred on 3 August 1990 when Professor Jack Levy retired as Director -Engineering Profession and was succeeded by Professor Keith Foster MA, PhD, CEng,FIMechE, Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University ofBirmingham. By request of the Council, Professor Levy had stayed on two years beyond thenormal retirement age of 62. As the Director responsible for engineering education andtraining and for the profession, he had been responsible executively for numerous initiativesincluding SARTOR, the IEDP, and the international negotiations leading to Eur Ing and theWashington Accord.Sir William Barlow’s DepartureAt the Council Meeting in May 1990, HRH The Duke of Kent paid tribute to Sir WilliamBarlow’s efforts to bring to proper focus the EngC’s relationship with the EngineeringInstitutions, industry and individual engineers. Whilst this was Sir William’s last officialmeeting at the EngC, he actually continued to the end of 1990. When he finally retired fromthe Chairmanship, Sir William Barlow had considerably increased the prestige of the EngC inall its important partnerships – schools, universities, industry and international affairs – andhe had improved the EngC’s visibility in the public domain. Working closely with DenisFiler, the Director General, relationships with the Engineering Institutions had also moved inthe right direction. And although he had been impeded in his wish for the EngC to commenton matters of national importance, Sir William had nevertheless ensured that several suchcontributions had been made. However, he later reflected:“I felt we were gradually making real progress but I have to say that of the various Chairmanoffices I have occupied I found the Engineering Council one somewhat unsatisfying becauseof the constant parochial and unnecessary arguments with the Institutions and for that reasonI decided to give it up as soon as I could. Ten years later the Engineering Council still hadsome of these problems and was still struggling to be the voice of the Engineering profession.It deserved better support from the profession.”With hindsight it may seem that the end of 1990 marked a high-water mark in the progress ofthe EngC. Subsequently the momentum achieved since 1982 was not maintained in all itsactivities. The reasons for this will emerge in the following chapters.© Engineering Council UK 2004