Alumnus Shahid Khan's advice to engineers

Detroit Free Press (April 12) -- Billionaire business tycoon Shahid Khan told hundreds of engineers today in Detroit that the best advice he was ever given is to "make sure you make money" on any product a company makes. "At the end of the month, you have to make money. You need the money in order to hire the people ... and invest in the business," said Khan, a Pakistani immigrant who came to the U.S. at age 16 to attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and now owns Flex-N-Gate and the Jacksonville Jaguars. While the principle seems simple, Khan said engineers, as well as multibillion-dollar companies, often lose sight of that basic corporate need and design products that get ahead of what consumers are willing, or able, to buy.