Krp76 is absolutely right about a manager needing experience to avoid mistakes and issues during a project. A technical background helps a manager avoid make small but potentially catastrophic mistakes. Further, a manager with an experienced background will have realistic expectations and an idea of how a project will develop. For these reasons, it is often best to have a manager for a group of engineers be someone that was also an engineer before being promoted.

Although I do not have experience with this, I imagine a manager that has a relevant and experienced background is almost more likely to be respected by the engineers under him/her (and vice-versa). Does this sound like anything you guys have experienced?