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NCEES: Industrial Exemption/Education Changes 3

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lacajun

Electrical
Apr 2, 2007
1,678
From the October 2011 NSPE:

In August 2011, NCEES member licensing boards voted 60-5 to change the council's Model Law to require PEs to have responsible charge over the engineering design of buildings, structures, products, machines, processes, and systems that affect the public's health, safety, and welfare. The proposed amendment came in response to recent scrutiny of so-called industrial exemptions in state laws. These exemptions typically allow engineers employed by manufacturing businesses ot utilities to carry out engineering work without being licensed.

NCEESs action follows a unanimous vote by the NSPE House of Delegates in July to adopt a policy that recommends phasing out industrial exemptions in state licensing laws.

As the next step in the process, an NCEES committee will draft language that amends the Model Law, which serves as the engineering profession's nonbinding recommendation for how state licensing laws should be written.

In the area of education, NCEES members rejected a proposal related to a change in the Model Law that will take effect in 2020. That change will recommend that states increase the minimum education requirement for a PE license to a master's degree or equivalent.

The proposal rejected by NCEES would have allowed licensure candidates to fulfill the education requirement through a combination of approved continuing education coursework, additional experience, and mentoring.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
 
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With a little bit of effort the people who sell engineering education and engineering society membership will be able to make engineering such a dry career that the truly innovative minds will not enter the profession.

Additional engineering education delivered by professors with no industrial experience ought to fix the problem. We will further delay the weeding out of unsuitable candidates. I don't think of this as an improvement aimed at my needs.
 
Presumably the masters requirement is being introduced because the american education system is incapable of delivering sufficient numbers of high school students with any calculus etc into the first year at uni. Therefore the first year of university is spent getting the intake up to the level that would have been expected previously.

The truth is that there won't be many arguing against this, all the academics will be in favour, industry will mistakenly think they are getting something for nothing, current engineers will be grandfathered in, and future ones don't have a say.

As to the elimination of industry exemption, that will be interesting. The PE exams are pretty trivial, from the practice papers I've seen, I'd imagine the average industry exempt guy will walk through them with a book in one hand, as they are designed to be. What will be interesting is the clash of cultures between the 'we design to code' mob and the 'we design for function' mob. Tantrums, foot-stomping, and tears, ahead.

Of course this all just a power grab by NCEES, I imagine at least some states will remind NCEES of the awesomeness of its jurisdiction and powers, ie zip.


Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
 
I don't see this is an impediment to creativity, the profession, or entering the profession. Many have negative views of the PE under the current rules.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
 
Speaking from my experience, the biggest hurdle for an engineer in an exempt industry is getting the required PE endorsements. If you have never worked with a PE, have never been required to work with a PE how are you going to get the required endorsements?

I do not think that raising the education requirements will improve the quality of the PE profession. Requiring PE's to have actual "hands-on" experience is critical. Many PE's experience comes out of spec writing mills. This is becoming a huge problem in our area.
 
Agenda for next NCEES meeting:

1. Vote on adoption of new secret handshake.
 
I have an MS in engineering. Even though it opened doors for me, I do not agree with the decision not to require a MS equivalent to sit for the PE. I benefited from the MS because I did it in an entire different area as my undergraduate degree.

Employers will not pay you more for the MS. It could give you a leg up when comparing similar resumes.

An MS does not equal increased wages. For example, the accountants in Florida are required the 30 credits past the undergrad to get the CPA license. However, most CPAS in Florida are not paid more than other CPAS in other states that do not have this ridiculous requirement.

I also have an MBA, I treasure it more than the engineering MS because it opened my eyes to the shift in our profession. I look to India and see that a lot of our engineering jobs will not come back to the US. NCEES seems to not understand the world as we live it.

Want to improve our profession? Require mandatory business foundational courses at the undergrad level. For example, introductory accounting, finance, management fundamentals, business strategy, and maybe a soft skills course.

Flame away...
 
I'm glad to see the MS requirement go away. My MSME was mostly a set of advanced calculus courses. It was interesting, but not terribly relevant.

Every state that I've looked at trying to get licensed in has started with the model law from NCEES and then tweaked it. Most of the tweaks are trivial crap that the states use to show how important they are. The 2020 model law had me concerned because a bunch of the states were going to go along with the MS requirement for sitting for the P.E. and add a bunch of costs and zero value.

I think that getting rid of the industrial exemption has a bunch of hair on it. When I got my P.E. an attorney required that I go to the corporate office in Houston for a "conversation". The conversation was really one sided, he told me the ramifications of the P.E. on my family as long as I worked for the company. His most important point was that if I stamped anything, it was at my own risk. The company was prohibited by law from defending me or even providing me with insurance. If something went wrong with something I stamped then I had to hire my own lawyer, pay any settlement out of my own pocket, and the company was prohibited from reimbursing me and may have to fire me when the suit was filed (that was not as cut and dried, but was a real possibility). Given that, it seems like all engineering goes to consultants and in house engineers go away.

David
 
David, my first employer had that policy but it was rather relaxed and they would defend, if necessary. From my perspective, problems were a rarity, which may have led them to relax their policy somewhat. It may have been a function of the largeness of the "oops."

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
 
He told me it was not policy, but law. He said that my employeer was prohibited by law from defending me. The project that my boss wanted me to stamp was an EPA form that required a P.E. stamp. The penalties of violations for the P.E. were a range from fines and to fines and jail. The lawyer said it was unlikely that they would go that far, but "unlikely" is different than "impossible".

After I retired and got insurance I ended up redoing the report (the one that I didn't sign as an employee never got signed). We found that the one I didn't sign was incorrect on over 80% of the parameters entered and nearly 100% of the sites had one or more errors. The report they wanted me to stamp was a work of fiction and was probably bad enough that if it had ever been executed it would have failed audit in a spectacular way (probably bad enough for someone to go to jail). Since it was never executed it broke no laws. It was one of those things where you tell overworked people to do some extra work without emphisising the ramifications of making stuff up, so the field guys made stuff up about a couple of thousand well sites. The report that got stamped was done by contractors under my direct control.

David
 
Bottom line -

How can a bunch of guys/gals design a 747 that can carry like 400 people without being a PE. And I have to have a PE to design a 4' retaining wall or or 10' x 12' storage shed?? All required here!!

GO FIGURE!!!!!!!!!!
 
So, are they at least going to add some PE exams/specialties that are vaguely relevant to what many of us in 'exempt' industry actually do?

Smart to add extra cost to a sector already facing so much competition from overseas. Are we going to be so much more efficient/well educated... because of getting the PE that it will make up for it?

Does this mean we'll no longer have to build prototypes and conduct extensive testing on them etc. but instead can just build them to meet the minimum requirements of some fairly arbitrary code and assume they'll be fine? (Enough foot stomping for you Greg.)

As others mention, I forsee a resurgence in drafters/designers/technicians/analysts...

Posting guidelines faq731-376 (probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484
 
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