Engineers

Nearly everyone on Google Inc.'s sprawling campus here knows Thunder Parley, at least by reputation. But it's not his unusual name, outgoing personality or skills as a software engineer that make him stand out. He is the most famous foodie at a company that takes gastronomy nearly as seriously as Web-search algorithms. Parley was raised in a small New England town on Life cereal and SpaghettiOs. He used to think Taco Bell was authentic Mexican fare, and he never ate salmon except out of a can.

The company that provides engineers for Metrolink trains spent $105,000 during the last two years lobbying state lawmakers to give it flexibility to delay meal breaks for employees, including those who drive public transit buses. Investigators looking into the Sept.

Spurred by the deadly head-on crash of two trains in Chatsworth, congressional negotiators agreed Tuesday to a groundbreaking rail safety reform bill requiring many passenger and freight trains to be equipped with technology that can automatically prevent collisions. The measure had stalled before Sept. 12, when a Metrolink commuter train crashed into a Union Pacific freight train, killing 25 people and injuring 135.

Six months ago, four companies were competing for the shuttle service at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Florida. Each of the 10 members on the selection committee agreed that the current operator, ShuttlePort, was ranked last and would not be renewed. In 2007, ShuttlePort drivers had been involved in two fatal accidents -- one of them a head-on collision between two of its vans -- killing a total of three people.

At 11:30 on the morning of Sept. 19, some 60 engineers and conductors gathered at a modest La Crescenta house. They had come to memorialize Robert Sanchez, the engineer killed a week earlier when the Metrolink train he was driving collided with a Union Pacific freight train.

He had a scowl that could melt the paint off a race car. And that's only one reason they called the late Dale Earnhardt "the Intimidator." So when engineer Alba Colon stepped up to introduce herself to the reigning NASCAR champion midway through her first day on the job, all in the room held their breath. After all, there was no such thing as a female engineer, not in stock car racing. Especially one who spoke little English. And Colon was both.

A house of cards is how some engineers describe the steel truss system used on the Interstate 35W bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi River, saying that almost any piece of the complex design that failed would have brought down the entire span.

So much for sweating out that first job after college. Like star athletes, engineering students Julie Arsenault and Emily Reasor are prized prospects for the energy industry, which is experiencing dizzying demand for engineers. Bustling oil field activity and retiring baby boomers, among other factors, have petroleum outfits large and small trying to hire thousands of engineers, and experts say the trend is expected to extend into the next decade as worldwide energy demand grows.

Rick RUBIN, George Martin, Timbaland, Brian Eno, Phil Spector -- the average pop music fan, if asked, could probably come up with at least a handful of names of notable recording personnel. It seems fair to say, though, that the typical consumer of orchestral and chamber music recordings, faced with the same question, would draw a blank.

Found: geeks on the beach. Google Inc. has spread out like a beach towel in Santa Monica. What started in 2003 with a few dozen employees has grown into the company's fourth-largest office and fourth-largest engineering center in the U.S., with 300-plus employees in three buildings. "We have the best weather of any office in Google," said Thomas Williams, the engineering director who heads the office.