When approximately 500 junior and senior high school students descended on the Kern County Museum for two days, Feb. 18-19, they had in mind more than just finding out about the county’s grand history. Their focus was on making history as engineers, as they attended the National Engineers Week career event sponsored by the Society of Petroleum Engineers, Kern County Superintendent of Schools and the Kern County Museum. It offered students the opportunity to meet with industry representatives and find out about careers in engineering and geology. Event coordinator John Kaiser, Society of Petroleum Engineers community outreach director, said the event had two goals — to entice those with strong math and science backgrounds to become engineers and to help an industry where there is a real shortage of qualified professionals. "In five-to-seven years, 50 percent of the engineering workforce in this country will be facing retirement," Kaiser said. "Look around us. We need engineers to develop the wind farms, solar systems and other sources of alternative power as we move away from a dependence on oil and towards renewable energy. And we still need plenty of petroleum engineers because that conversion is not going to happen overnight." More