Even small changes in environment and materials can adversely affect corrosion resistance and result in catastrophic degradation.

The committee is convinced that the responsibility for rectifying this faulty perception falls to the corrosion community itself. The education of a corrosion-savvy workforce is, broadly speaking, dependent on the health of the corrosion community, so the committee’s second recommendation is addressed to that community.

The committee presents its tactical recommendations in three ways: (1) by stakeholder—first, government, industry, and professional societies and, second, the university and education sector, (2) in the form of a summary matrix, and (3) by educational goal—namely, strategies for improving the education of identified segments of the engineering workforce.

To the Government, Industry, and Professional Societies

• Industry and government agencies, such as DOD, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Highway Administration, state departments of transportation, DOT, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, should strengthen the provision of corrosion courses and support the promulgation of corrosion-related learning outcomes by disseminating skills sets for corrosion technologists and engineers. The skills sets should be tied to actual case histories. Such an ongoing effort would enable the setting and periodic updating of learning outcomes for corrosion courses.