Let us appreciate our Engineer-Contractors

I was not aware of it, but it seems I am the author of the term "engineer-contractor."

That is what my old comrade-in-arms, Lieutenant Prof. Dr. Barış Doster, says.

If that is the case, let us dig a little deeper into the subject so that no one else intervenes and our patent can be registered.

The history of the concept of engineering in the world is very old.

The Roman Aqueducts in Aksaray, Istanbul, transported spring water from kilometers away to the city using gravity through elevation calculations, without the need for pumps.

The Norias in the Syrian city of Hama were used as water-lifting machines for irrigation purposes.

The snake bridge on the Macclesfield Canal was built with a system that allowed the towpath to cross the canal without disconnecting the narrow boat pulled by a horse.

In the small Iranian village of Nashtifan, some of the world's oldest windmills are still turning.

Colosseums brought thousands of people together.

The Egyptian Pyramids, whose construction methods are still debated, are also an engineering feat.

The Kurgans of the Turks and the Qanat underground water channels of Iran are the same.

However, the first industrial revolution of 1730 with the steam engine moved engineering to another phase.

It changed the transportation algorithm by converting muscle power into mechanical energy and machine power.

It achieved the ability to move thousands of tons of load with the touch of a finger.

Artificial intelligence is now taking engineering to the highest level. 

Turkish Engineer-Contractors are also keeping up with this change.

Although the haphazard practices of self-taught contractors who are not literate still hold some validity in the eyes of the public, they are not accepted by the people.

The citizens are fed up with contractors who look like prison escapees or vagabonds.

They have reached their limit.

Most recently, they paid with their lives for the negligence of these reckless contractors in the building that collapsed due to the Gebze metro construction.

Is it our fate?

Certainly not.

There are dozens of engineer-contractors who will build the engineering structures Turkey needs in accordance with the necessary scientific conditions.

I am not saying this.

The institution that ranks international engineering and contracting, ENR, says so.

What does it say!

Turkish engineer-contractors are carrying out industrial projects such as airports, subways, roads, high-speed trains, dams, ports, and offshore energy facilities in the most challenging countries of the world.

They are very successful and do not experience any deaths or injuries related to work accidents.

The projects and manufacturing they carry out have the capacity to serve for centuries.

They are high quality.

On the other hand, they both design the projects and carry out the manufacturing of these works.

With whom?

With engineers and architects who graduated from Turkish universities.

Starting with Sezai Türkeş and Fevzi Akkaya in the construction of the Misrata Port in Libya in the 1970s, Turkish Engineer-Contractors moved to a higher league with the founder of ENKA, Şarık Tara, our elder brother.

The second and third generations of republican engineer-contractors, who analyzed their role models well, carried the flag they received from their elders even higher.

Our engineer-contractor elders such as Ersin Arıoğlu, Nihat Gökyiğit, Feyyaz Berker, Necati Akçağlılar, İdris Yamantürk, Gönül Talu, Üzeyir Garih, Ertuğrul Kurdoğlu, and the Çarmıklı family were very successful in international contracting, and then our elder brother Sani Şener, who created a revolution in airport construction, changed the algorithm of contracting and established a system that not only builds but also finances and operates.

Thus, the volume of international construction projects undertaken by Turkish Engineer-Contractors has exceeded 500 billion dollars.

They have entered the class of preferred engineer-contractors and have become a brand.

While they were primarily working in Eurasia, the Middle East, and North African countries, they have also started to undertake projects on the European continent.

Look at the Stockholm metro.

As the engineering faculties of our universities get stronger, our engineer-contractor system will become more agile and create more added value for our country.