What are industry leaders looking for in engineering and manufacturing managers?
Dr. Joe Jordan, Professor of Practice for the Department of Engineering Technology, says they need competent professionals who care about their work. 
Dr. Jordan says his goal as graduate faculty is to mentor students to be prepared and dedicated through the M.S. in Engineering & Technology Management degree program.
In the spring of 2019, Dr. Jordan joined the 鶹ҹ as a full-time faculty member. Included in the course load he took over are four core classes in the Engineering & Tech Management online program.
"Most students will take me at least three times,” says Dr. Jordan.
That means engineering technology graduate students are with Dr. Jordan for at least a third of their coursework, gaining valuable perspective from his career and research.
Where engineering and business intersect
The throughline of Jordan’s career has been connecting researchers, engineers, and business leaders in academia and non-governmental organizations.
After earning his master’s degree in industrial engineering, Dr. Jordan worked with the extension service at Mississippi State University, which took him to all corners of the state to collaborate with “mostly agribusiness industries.”
“Partly, [we were] making sure that industry was aware of the latest research trends. Partly, it was about making the connections between industry and the university," says Dr. Jordan. “But our real goal was always economic development."
In the mid-2010s, Dr. Jordan served as the Innovation Practice Manager for the nonprofit economic development organization, Innovate Mississippi, which aimed to help local manufacturing businesses compete in global markets.
His leadership was instrumental in an initiative to restore domestic manufacturing jobs previously outsourced overseas.
The sum of these experiences has given Dr. Jordan a gift for helping students understand the principles of engineering and systems technology through the lens of applied business management.
Engineering graduate Jason Meaux came to the program as a full-time project manager and was surprised — and impressed — to find Dr. Jordan’s project management class the most challenging course he had to take.
“I'm quite experienced, so I expected it to be very easy. It was not,” Meaux says. “I had to work the most for that course. It required a lot of work and gave me a couple of paradigm shifts within my own work and assumptions I held within my field.”
Commitment to quality
Dr. Jordan’s goal as an instructor is to prime students to exceed the expectations placed on them in their field.
“If they walk into a situation at work where they need to understand these processes, I want them to be equipped,” Dr. Jordan says.
In Dr. Jordan’s experience, succeeding in the online graduate program and succeeding in industry require the same traits: drive, discipline, and care.
“I've noticed the students who are most successful tend to take the initiative to reach out, build a relationship with the instructor, and ask questions when they don't understand.”
Effective communication and critical thinking are also key to leading an organization of skilled and specialized labor through a complex project.
“When I talk to people in the industry, they say they really need people who care. They need people who will assume responsibility for a project and care that it gets done right,” says Dr. Jordan. “I think that's what it takes to get through the graduate program as well.”