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Arizona’s Governor to Licensing Boards: What Is It That You Do? 4

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@CheckerHater,

I actually found that to be a sorry application of very good laws meant to protect the public. He was not practicing engineering nor selling services to the public under false pretenses. He made a claim that he's an electronics engineer, which I've seen no reason to doubt. Like it or not, there are myriad job titles with the word 'engineer' in them, many of which not regulated by state boards. How many mechanical engineers practice actual engineering without a state license?

To fine him and go after him with legal action is just ludicrous. $500 seems like it's on the very-low end of the scale of fines from what I read of people getting slapped with unlicensed practice, but maybe in Oregon that's not abnormal. I still find it to be a silly application of the law.

He apparently used his job title (current or former, I don't know) to attempt to establish some sort of mathematical analysis acumen before launching into his data analysis. I don't have anything against it. I would think anyone would do similar when introducing themselves prior to such discourse, whether it be a physics teacher, statistics professor, or engineering professor. It's just establishing some sort of context that may make the reader more likely to give the reasoning weight.

 
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@JNieman,

This is exactly the point.
Every normal person would see the situation the way you described it, except... people who's job is to protect the integrity of engineering profession.

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future
 
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Ah, I understand you, now. I completely misread the "tone" of your "what licencing boards are good for" statement. Plus I was probably biased after getting into a discussion with a couple friends just last night about this issue, who were wholly on the "he said the word engineer, he has to be licensed!" side, completely supporting the Oregon board. The two friends aren't even engineers.

That said, I am very happy the boards do exist. Humans will make mistakes, and I'm one of the first to be bitter about 'beaurocratic' effects in offices, but I wouldn't dare suggest the abolishing of the public protections afforded by licensing boards and enforced standards. I would not want to live in the USA that existed before engineering codes and regulations, most of which were lessons won via loss of lives.
 
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I guess the question is "if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted?" Who will check the checker? :)

Maybe occasional government intervention like described in OP is not entirely bad thing?

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future
 
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Agreed.

Simply asking the question or auditing efficacy is not, imo, a sign that someone wishes to do away with good regulation. Periodic evaluation, so long as it's done with a level head, is necessary. Especially when it's an organization serving the public.
 
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I would not want to live in the USA that existed before engineering codes and regulations, most of which were lessons won via loss of lives.
Click to expand...

Having grown up in rural America which our country predominantly is to this day, I often wonder what if any difference to the general public regulation and code would make today. Realistically, many (most?) areas are still not subject to building inspections and even highly regulated areas have their share of "criminals" successfully finding ways around regulation without major disasters occurring. While I have no issue with licensing or other regulation if data proves its worthwhile, I don't believe any of it is data-driven as it should be but rather is fear and greed driven as much of politics is.

OTOH, I firmly believe that our profession has done a remarkable job over the past few centuries of refining and standardizing materials, components, and techniques that have had the huge impact I believe you are attributing elsewhere.
 
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I grew up, and currently again, reside, in rural America. Given some of the places I've worked, I'm quite familiar with areas that don't "have to" comply with modern building codes. However, the normalization and expectations that places do... has yielded voluntary compliance. I expect the lack of mandatory inspections would surprise most of rural Americans. There is an /expectation/ that buildings comply with modern standards - especially those of us in tornado country. Having most new construction held to established standards and codes means that the rest will stand out and likely subject to civil litigation without much of a leg to stand on, if they don't follow suit.

St Louis City, however, just recently found out why boiler inspections and codes are vital:
The State of Missouri requires inspections of pressure vessels periodically but for reasons I don't know, leaves STL City exempt from that requirement. They simply require there be an engineer 'on duty' if they run boilers, which they did.
 
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The relationship between the city of St Louis and the rest of Missouri is a strange and complex one. To see one aspect of that, just look at a map of the greater St Louis area and note that the city is ringed by a larger number of much smaller CITIES. Not villages or towns, but fully incorporated, albeit very small, CITIES. These CITIES were established in the this manner so as to restrain St Louis from becoming any larger than it already was. They literally "fenced them in". But keeping these small CITIES viable is very expensive since each city has to duplicate all the services that a fully incorporated city must provide in order to maintain their status as a real city. This has led to unintended consequences which from time to time are exposed in ways that end-up on the 11:00 news or the front pages of the nations newspapers. Just think of Ferguson, MO and the problems that they had there a few years ago and how it was that they happened in the first place.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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I grew up, and currently again, reside, in rural America. Given some of the places I've worked, I'm quite familiar with areas that don't "have to" comply with modern building codes. However, the normalization and expectations that places do... has yielded voluntary compliance. I expect the lack of mandatory inspections would surprise most of rural Americans.
Click to expand...

I would wager that far more urban/suburban Americans would be surprised by the lack of oversight common in our heartlands than rural folks living it, and many would find it unbelievable. I always get a giggle when I tell someone of plans to remodel or build a garage and their first concern is permitting or inspections, neither has been a valid concern for most of my life and my worst experiences with building construction have been in highly regulated areas. JMO but I believe most folks' sense of acceptable minimum quality has far more to do with most buildings meeting code than the actual regulation does, many Americans might shop at Walmart but are a bit more picky when it comes to major purchases. There will always be occasions of bad things happening, I simply believe that the doomsday scenarios speculating on an un/less regulated world to be vastly overblown.
 
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I hear you.

I built a fence in my backyard. No one cares. (tornadoes, and rural)

When I lived in Louisiana, it would require a permit and design review (hurricanes, but in large city)

I think we'd see far more industrial accidents if regulations go away. I have known far too many plant managers and maintenance engineers who only barely, begrudgingly, allowed budget for basic safety and inspection investments. To think what they would do (and get away with) when someone isn't able to slap codes/laws/standards in their face...

I suppose I think less of the potential of humans for negligence than you. Not a doomsday scenario, but certainly something I see making civilization less civilized.
 
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"I simply believe that the doomsday scenarios speculating on an un/less regulated world to be vastly overblown."

People don't seem to learn, so I'd believe in a heartbeat that if the EPA crippled the Clean Air Act, we'd be seeing as bad a smog as they have in China right now. In fact, China should be a poster child for unfettered business run amuck. Even when people know that if what they're doing gets bad enough, they'll face a firing squad, they still do it. We had regular Stage 3 smog alerts in LA in the 1970s where we were told, rightly so, that going outside would hurt our health. My Uber driver from a few months back moved back to the US because his nice, clean US lungs (thanks to EPA) couldn't handle breathing in Shanghai smog.

We had children dying of leukemia and other illnesses in San Jose in the 1970s because it was easier for IBM and Fairchild to dump their TCE into the groundwater than to dispose of it safely.

Now, it's possible that social media smog-shaming and pollution-shaming might rein that sort of behavior in, but that's not something that I'd bet my children's lives on.

Given the high cost of copper do we really want to see the effects of using cheaper aluminum wiring again? Do we really want safety of our children to be based solely on how much we, as parents, are willing or able to spend to buy copper wiring for our homes?

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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When I was a kid we lived in Northern Michigan (30 miles to closest city with more than 1,000 people and it only had about 3,500) and my father went out of his way to avoid having the township building inspector coming out to sign-off on what he was doing. His biggest reason for that was because the building inspector lived in a house with NO indoor plumping nor central heat.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
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