N.C. State University's engineering job fair is expected to attract more than 265 employers and thousands of job seekers next week in Raleigh.

The biannual event is one of the nation's largest career fairs for engineering students, drawing applicants from far beyond local universities. Last year nearly 5,000 job seekers thronged to the fair.

This year's event will be held at the McKimmon Center, 1101 Gorman St.

For more info call 919-515-3263 or visit http://students.engr.ncsu.edu/careerfair/.

The Roberts Company, which provides design, fabrication and engineering services for large industrial clients, said today that it will add a new facility in Pitt County and create 29 jobs over the next three years. 

The company is based in Winterville, just outside Greenville. It employs 460 people in the state.

Roberts is investing $3.25 million in the new facility. The company is receiving an $80,000 grant from the One North Carolina fund.

The new jobs will pay an average annual wage of $40,480 plus benefits.  The Pitt County average is $30,628.

John R. McAdams founded his eponymous engineering and land development firm more than 30 years ago. A month later, Mike Munn celebrated his sixth birthday.

Now, in a changing of the generational guard at one of the Triangle’s roster of private, professional-services firms, McAdams has named Munn president of the company.

McAdams, a Duke alumnus, held an “inauguration” ceremony at the Durham headquarters last week where he handed the reins to Munn, an N.C. State graduate who grew up in Oxford.

A small Raleigh company that sells engineering software and services has moved to bigger offices as it continues to hire.

Integrated Industrial Information, or I-Cubed, recently expanded into new space at N.C. State's Centennial Campus. The company now employs 38 people after adding 10 last year, and expects to hire at least 10 more this year.

This afternoon, company officials will show off the larger digs and then host a reception at the N.C. Museum of History to mark I-Cubed's 25th anniversary. Such festivities aren't unheard-of for Triangle businesses, but have become rarer during the recession.

"It's a nice way to slow down and reflect, but also to show appreciation for all the hard work that's allowing us to continue to grow," said CEO Donald A. Thompson Jr., left.

The president and founder of Raleigh mechanical engineering firm Acorn Industrial says his company's sale to Houston-based Comfort Systems USA will provide Acorn with the expertise and financial muscle it needs to compete for bigger contracting jobs.

"Bringing in a financial backer like Comfort allows us to compete at a whole new level with some of the larger contractors," said Wes Carter, who founded Acorn in 1997.

Comfort announced last week that it had purchased Acorn as well as Dillingham & Smith, a Nashville contracting company. Financial terms of the deals weren't disclosed.

Acorn, which works solely in North Carolina and employees between 50 and 100 employees, will keeps its company name and all its staff.

"The way Comfort works is when they acquire companies they like them to keep doing the things they were doing that made them successful," Carter said.

Want to make a ton of cash when you get out of college? Here are a couple tips, courtesy of PayScale, an online salary website:

• Go to Dartmouth. The Ivy League college's grads have the highest average mid-career salaries.

• Be an engineer. In particular, an aerospace engineer. 

• Careers in other quantitative-oriented careers pay well as well - like math, economics and the sciences.

Don't want to make a lot of money? Go into social work, or teaching, or theology or music.

And though it's not on this particular list, I can say with some confidence that journalism won't pay you much, either.

Celebrating its 22nd year, the North Carolina Science and Engineering Fair was held for students in grades 3-12 at Meredith College in Raleigh on ... more

Though Southern High School has a separate Construction and Architectural Design Academy within the school, few female students end up participating.

But the field can be rewarding and lucrative. Lisa Pineiro, CEO of Technical Services Inc., wants to encourage female students to explore the field.

Pineiro (pictured here) has recruited more than a dozen Southern cheerleaders to spend the next three Thursdays learning how to use hand tools in carpentry.

Once they complete their basic training, they'll assemble playground equipment for a Habitat for Humanity house next month.

Pineiro, who lives in Bahama, says if other students see the popular cheerleaders -- often the girliest girls at school -- to explore a field that's traditionally seen as a man's world, then maybe more young women will catch on.