From his bio it looks like he has an engineering degree but only briefly used during the first part of his Army service right out of college. After that he sold computers until deemed ready to become an executive at the steel mill his father owned. He could not have devoted much time even to that, because four years later he graduated with a Master of Divinity degree, but somehow thought that suited him to politics rather than ministry, so he entered the former profession.

Not that I disagree technical fields tend to draw ivory-tower types just like the rest of academia, but I would argue the pragmatism engineering requires makes it less common there than elsewhere.