Industry exempts: how can they find PEs for recommendations? 2

[leanne]

Consider the case of many industry exempts:

No RPEs in an engineer's current realm of influence.

How can an engineer in an industry exempt job make connections with RPEs who would be willing to become familiar with the engineer's work to vouch for them on an RPE application? Without the engineer being required to leave current job.

How about a little brainstorming?

 

[miner00]

leanne-

after reading your post again, if you were to take the texas law by the letter, it wouldn't even be leagal to use the EIT/FE designation.

What do engineers (not specifically you) call themselves out there working either as an engineer intern or as industry exempt???

miner

 

[electricpete]

Wow, that is quite an interesting quote from Texas law.

I work in Texas in an exempt environment (power plant). We have 80 people at our plant that use the title engineer freely (pay grade, job title, business card etc) and only about 20 are PE's. I haven't heard anyone complain or fined at our work site. But I'm going to show that snippet of the law around at work.... I'm sure people will get a kick out of it.

I also get the PE newsletter which lists all discipline handed out by the board. I remember there were some complaints about people offering engineering services without a PE, but I don't remember anything specifically about just using the title.

If there is no-one being harmed (the person's employement does not require PE under recognized exemption), I can't imagine any enforcement action on this law regarding titles.

 

[electricpete]

Wait a second.

"....This exemption includes the use of job titles and personnel classifications by such persons not in connection with any offer of engineering services to the public, providing that no name, title, or words are used which tend to convey the impression that an unlicensed person is offering engineering services to the public;"

So you CAN call yourself an engineer in Texas as long as there is no attempt to market yourself as providing engineering services to the public. Right?

 

[BobPE]

electricpete:

I think you are right. Only within the walls of your industry can you use engineer. You cannot use it outside of the company. That includes correspondence to other companies, business cards handed to people outside the company, trade shows...etc...

Texas is messed up, it is one of the states microsoft took on to pass their junk word usage of certified systems engineer. Texas really reacted strongly against them I guess....

BobPE

 

[electricpete]

"Texas is messed up"

I assume your just talking about the board, right partner?

(Sorry everyone for indiscriminantly wasting your bandwidth.... couldn't resist)

 

[leanne]

I thought your name was Pete, not Sam

 

[BobPE]

lol electricSAM...yes, i am refering to the board....LOL

no other problems with Texas here...LOL

BobPE

 

[jb48]

Folks,

I think we are missing the point here. If we want to be treated like professionals we need to start acting like we are. In my opinion, universal registration, elimination of the industry exception, and legally restricting the use of the term "Engineer", would go a long way toward achieving that goal.

Obviously, elimination of the industry excemption would need to be coupled with some type of short term (i.e. 3 - 5 years) "grandfather" provision, which would allow those with a degree and "x" number of years in the industry to be registered without references. Has anyone wondered where the first people registered under the current laws got their references? In most cases, they were admitted under just such a provision.

 

[BobPE]

jbassociates:

It is a tough point. But I think everyone associated with the posts is making progress, including me. I like your ideas...but the problem is how do we make them reality????

I think it has to come from the industry exempt side to have more grassroots meaning to the boards. I am willing to do what it takes, and make every effort I can to help industry exempts...I think its definately a step in the right direction...and this forum helps towards the communication needed a lot...

There are people here that are exempt that actually looked up their state boards and communicated with them, I think thats awsome...

We just have to keep trying...

BobPE

 

[electricpete]

From a selfish perspective, universal registration requirement sounds great.
More jobs requiring PE's=Higher demand for people with PE's
I would think it would be an upward pressure on salaries accross the professional engineering ranks.
Engineers with PE's would gain. Those that can't obtain PE's for some reason (possibly beyond their control) would lose.

Seems like maybe an increase in the cost of engineers might be one more factor contributing to loss of competitiveness of US tech companies against their international counterparts.

From an abstract point of view, my understanding is that the reason for requiring PE for certain work is to protect the health and safety of the public. The PE involved providing building design is the last line of defense. For exempt industries, it seems the organization accepts the responsibility and the associated risk for internal engineering by non-PE's. Since the organization bears the risk, they ensure appropriate controls and barriers are in place to the extent required to protect their own interests.

Regarding whether PE's should be able to register without PE references... my personal opinion on that subject already occupies too many kilobytes on this thread. But I don't think that the processing of the "original PE's" has much relevance to that discussion. Surely those original PE's were a smaller number with increased scrutiny. More importantly those guys are all dead by now. But any references that those original PE's provided to subsequent generations still carry much more weight than a non-PE. After all, those original PE's still had something to lose if they signed a bogus SER for an applicant.

ElectricSam?... doesn't have much a ring to it. How about Yosemite Pete?
(I hates rabbits and other furry varmints)

 

[jb48]

Pete,

Perhaps a little selfishness is what this profession needs. In my experience companies tend to see engineers as interchangeable cogs. Any fifty are just as good as any other fifty, so lets hire the cheapest ones we can find. Its funny, but this logic doesn't appear to apply to CEOs. Lets remember that the Industrial Exemption was not created for the benefit of engineers working in industry, it was created for the benefit of industry.

In my opinion, the greatest threat to the economic competitiveness of US industry is not higher wages for engineers, but, the drain on the engineering talent pool which the current situation is causing. For better or worse, we are in a global economy, and it seems to me that we have two choices. We can lower our standard of living to compete with third world labor, or we can strive to create a profession which attracts the "best and brightest". People whose technical skill and creative input add value far in excess of their compensation. Personally, I vote for the latter.

My point in bringing up the "original engineers" was not intended to imply that references from practicing PE's familiar with ones work are not valuable. I believe that they serve an important function. I have provided references for several people who worked under my direct supervision, and have always considered it a serious responsibility. The point that I'm trying to make is that the Industrial Exemption has created a "chicken and egg" situation where few engineers working in industry are registered, and most cannot be registered because, few engineers working in industry are registered. If we are ever going achieve true professionalism, which in my opinion requires universal registration, then we need to find a way around this situation.

 

[electricpete]

Hi jb. Your comments make good sense. I'll have to think about that best and the brightest part.

I can see your logic that easing some requirements to PE licensing (like PE references) may be required to make the transition.

 

[buzzp]

I hate to say this, I would guess industry exempt (electrical) engineers make as much as your PE consultants.

I do not see how making PE licensing mandatory for all engineers would help the engineering discipline. If PE's do make more (maybe they do in general) then wont this bring the wages up causing more outsourcing to other countries? Also, who will bear the cost of taking/studying for the PE, the company or the employee? If it is the company, this will also slightly increase the cost on US engineering labor. I don't know, seems like the result would be a contradiciton to the so-called benefits. The way the system is now seems to be working fine.

 

[BobPE]

buzzp:

If industry exempt employers were required to use PE's for engineering, do you really think they would find them overseas? I think it would stop the current trent to outsource engineering and would reverse the process making the prospects for engineers even better. I work in consulting and our EE PE's make in the low 6 figures, maybe this is less than industry.....

As for making the PE mandatory, I think it would eliminate a lot of the charlatans that practice our profession....As was stated in other posts, it wont make for a better engineer, but it would say that the PE passed a minimum set of standards to become an engineer....

BobPE

 

[GregLocock]

low 6 doesn't sound much for an experienced engineer in a consultancy to me. 400k (US$) is not unheard of for industry exempt automotive engineering consultants. I've worked with two.

Rick seems to think in Canada that PE or no PE wages top out at 100k. Since their PE system is the least shambolic of anyone I really don't agree with your point.

If PEs were compulsory then everyone would get PEs, or reciprocal equivalents. Worldwide. Bang goes your cosy monopoly. Be careful what you wish for.



Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[BobPE]

GregLocock, you hire staff engineer consultants that make 400k....let me know how I can help your company!!!! LOL....

Every engineer getting their PE (no substitutes though) is my goal!!! LOL no monopoly thoughts, that isn't what its about!!!!

BobPE

 

[GregLocock]

"you hire staff engineer consultants that make 400k....let me know how I can help your company!!!! ". You can't. You aren't qualified.

"no monopoly thoughts, that isn't what its about". Um, if an effect is to force up the cost of a service by imposing restrictions on the availability of that resource, it sure looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck.



Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[GregLocock]

Oh, you are right, they were only on $US288k, I forgot about the exchange rate

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[BobPE]

greglocock...how do you know I am not qualified...that's pretty assuming of you LOL...but then again you know what they say...lol I work for a lot of Automotive industries...that need PE's that is LOL...who knows, maybe even yours...lol now that would be funny LOL....

BobPE

 

[PSE]

BML from your August 4 post.

Where did you come across this exception. I contacted the Michigan Board a couple of weeks ago (I was on vacation last week) and they gave me no indication that general references were acceptable. Work experience had to be verified by at least 3 PE's.

Please keep the general thread going. Good posts!

Regards,