b'6 Member News November 2021From the PresidentFrom the PresidentAir Marshal Sir Julian YoungKBE CB FREng CEng FIETIET President Air Marshal Sir Julian Young has had an illustrious career in the Royal Air Force (RAF) spanning four decades, latterly serving as Chief of Materiel (Air) within the Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) organisation in the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and Chief Engineer for the RAF. Member News spoke to Sir Julian in late August as he wasWhat else will you be focusing on over the next 12 months?preparing to take on his Presidential role for the IET: The IET does so much across the board, and I want to build Its only in more recent months that becoming President ofon the work that IET Past President Peter Bonfield laid outthe IET has really struck me. I recently went to RAF Odiham,in his concordat.I also dont want to lose any of the threads where I served on my first tour as an Engineer Officer, andlaid down by immediate IET Past President Danielle GeorgeRAF Cosford, where I was Station Commander, to film withas part of our 150th anniversary year.IET.tv for the Presidents Address, and was pleased to shinea spotlight on the technicians working there and how theRAF trains its technicians as part of their apprenticeship. The first half of my career in the RAF was spent mostly on supporting operations, which gave me What are you most looking forward to as IET President? clarity and a strong sense of purpose. Ive seen the Ive been involved in IET Governance for some time, servingwork and skill that technicians possess, and I think first on the Membership and Professional Development Board,we can do more for technicians by concentrating on then as an elected Trustee and Vice President, and a Deputytheir needs and how we can best support them. President for the past two years. As a passionate Engineer, Im particularly interested in professionalisation and people development. I liken maintaining a military aircraft to a Formula 1 car. There Im a big fan of our IET Strategy 2030. The societalare around 31,750 people in the RAF today, and 38% of these challenges we are focusing on are incredibly important andare technical by profession. Some 9% of these are Engineer Id like to see our focus on sustainability, climate change andOfficers and the rest are technicians working on everything digital embedded into everything we do.from aircraft through vehicles and hydraulic rigs to cyber. We need to elevate the status of technicians. There are hundreds of other large industries out there with a huge workforce of technicians. Are we doing all we can for them?You mentioned professionalisation and development. What more can we do to support technicians?I came to achieve CEng late in my career because I needed that badge of professionalism for my role at the time. Since then, Ive shown others that professionalisation is a good thing to do.During my last six years in the MOD I was appointed the Defence Engineering Champion and had a small permanent team to assist me in this new role. We delivered Defences first STEM Strategy and a Professionalisation Strategy for Engineers. The MOD has bases throughout the UK and we encouraged military and Civil Service engineering colleagues to go out and give their time to support local area STEM activities and to champion professional registration - to inspire others to want to become you. We also wanted to show that we value our technical people. I want to see the IET open its arms wider and become more attractive for technicians.Watch Sir Julians Presidents Address on-demand at: theiet.org/presidents-address'