P.E. letters of recommendation from a cold start 2

[DarrellThomasNV]

Hello fellow engineers! I’m looking for some advice.

I’m trying to get my P.E. license in Nevada and I’ll be sitting for the test in a few weeks on October 23rd--wish me luck. Assuming I pass, the state requires four letters of recommendation from other P.E.s (any state), and four years of experience among other things. I have the four years, but I don’t have the letters yet.

Here’s the scoop: When I graduated B.S.M.E. many years ago, I worked for a P.E., and accomplished 3.5 years of experience (well documented). I started putting my P.E. package together in Florida where I lived, and I had everything I needed to test, including letters of recommendation--3 of which were P.E.s. Well… military duty called and unfortunately I never sat for the test.

Instead, I was selected to fly some pretty high-performance aircraft in the USAF. It was a blast, and I’ve been doing it for the past 15 years or so. It’s the most fun you can have with your clothes on! So, 15 years older, I'm ready to get back into engineering. Feeling stale, I go back to my Alma Matter and recently get an M.S. Engineering (2009). I’ll be retiring from the military in about 18 months after one more deployment.

As for the P.E., I’ll have 5.5 years of experience (the M.S. counts as two), the test (assuming I pass), the F.E. taken years ago, but no letters of recommendation. Nevada will not accept my letters written to the Florida board, they must be on the NEVADA forms, and ALL the recommendation must be from P.E.s. The strongest letter I have is from my P.E. mentor and coach, Dr. Sidhu, but he regretfully passed away a few years ago. The second strongest is not a P.E.—Florida didn’t require them all to be P.E.s; and the other two guys I worked on a “few” projects and I didn’t know very well beyond that.

I’m trying to avoid the “start over” answer, but this may be the case. Some things I’ve considered were:

(1) Ask my M.S. professors if they are P.E.s and get their endorsement--hopefully I can find four. (2) Volunteer to do some work on the side for a P.E. to demonstrate a sample of work. I still have a day job though. (3) Ask the board for a waiver. Likely. (4) Don’t take the test in Nevada. Take it in Florida and use the letters I’ve got. I don’t live in Florida.

thoughts?

 

[BigEGT]

Could you get your PE in Florida and then apply for your Nevada license by comity? Nevada may not require all of those things to do it that way. I recently obtained my PE in my home state of Alabama, but the company I work for does a lot of engineering work in Missouri. I've looked into getting licensed there as another notch on the resume so I was looking into application by comity. Check it out. It may work for you.

 

[Ron]

Darrell...congratulations on your willingness to continue with engineering and your service to the country.

Your plan to get existing Profs to give a recommendation is good. You might also try to contact the Florida references who are P.E.'s and get them to fill out a new one.


I doubt the Florida board will accept old letters. They will probably want new ones, just as Nevada. Yes, working part-time for another engineer to get a valid recommendation is also a good idea.

Good luck.

 

[kelowna]

I would talk to the Nevada board. If you have a recommendation letter from somebody who passed away, ever if it is for another state, they might accept it on the basis that you can hardly get a new one from him. To every rule there is at least one exception.

 

[BJC]

My guess is that your at Nellis AFB. If so there may be some PEs ( civilian and AF )in base facillities. Find them and buy them a beer if you have to.
The PE recommendation is a recomendation of character as well as of technical competence. Someone doe's not necessarly have to have know you for 4 years to give a recommendation.
State boards accept what they want to. I got two years credit for working for LBJ for two years.

 

[KENAT]

Not sure about the USAF, seeing as most states don't have an aero PE, but in the UK a lot of RAF engineering officers get thier equivalent of PE while in the service. That was how I was going to get my recomendation in the UK, I worked with/for several ex/current RAF guys. So BJC may have a good point. Are there any relevant societies or the like that hold meetings on base or in Vegas or something you might get some contacts there.

Have you talked directly to the board, there have been posts on here about various states showing some flexibility in various aspects, especially the 'working under the supervision of a PE' part.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Explain your military service - that may count as something..

 

[RacingAZ]

Your PE recommendation letters does not need to be from someone you worked under. It can be as a character reference and not for technical competence. They can also be PE's from other states but NV requires your letters to be pretty recent (I think it should be 1 year or less).

A good size military base always has an engineering division staffed primarily by civilian engineers and some of them are PE's. That might be your best bet. Also, there is an association of military engineers with a lot of members that continued their careers into the civilian engineering field (an old boss of mine is a member). With 15 years of service, you might know some people that belong to that group that knows someone.

Worst case, you can ask NV for a waiver. One thing working for you is your military service. Based on my experience, the boards that I dealt with have been very accommodating, including NV when they saw that I have prior military service. And I only served 3 years in the Army. You'll be surprised how much goodwill you can get with your military service.

There is also a last resort thing that you can do if all else fail. I won't post it here but if you feel that you're out of options, let me know.

Thanks for your service and good luck.

 

[TDAA]

Although it sounds like a personal goal, is there a real need for you to get this right away? Do you expect you will see an increase in pay, or have a need to stamp as an ME with "little experience in the field"?

Just asking to put it in perspective. Personally, I wish all engineers would go through the process of getting licensed, just wondering if this is something that HAS to happen right now.

 

[DarrellThomasNV]

All: thanks for the posts! Great inputs. I've found one of my professors that can write a letter. One down, three to go! 18 days until the test.

BigEGT: I'm actually trying to work it the other way around. Get it here, and comity to Florida... or where ever else I might go. Testing next year in Florida will be my backup plan though.

Ron: Thanks for the vote of confidence. ACTUALLY... The Florida board WILL take the old letters. They don't expire. There is no statute of limitations. (I called them) However, Florida changed their rules and only accept one year credit for the master's degree (versus two for Nevada)

kelowna: I'll ask for a waiver, submitted with the original letter, the death certificate and copies of my performance reports during that time. Hope it works!

BJC: Thanks for the tip. Yes, I'm at Nellis. I am working in that direction too. I went over to the engineering department and introduced myself, and asked to work on any projects that might fit. Without being crass, I flat-out explained what I was after, and my situation. This seems workable. It will probably cost lots of beer--or work

Kenat: You're exactly right. States don't offer P.E. for aero. Mine will be in mechanical. I think we can appreciate the difference between the two, but in fact schools (at least the one I went to) are combining the two departments. i.e. "Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering."

RacingAZ: Where are you at in Arizona? I get down there pretty frequently.

TDAA: Good questions! I've actually need to think on this one before I responded. Personal goal? Absolutely. HAVE TO get it right now? Yes and no.

Yes in the sense that this is where it fits in the schedule. I.e. I meet all requisite items (minus the letters that I'm whining about). I've just finished the masters degree a few months ago, and all this stuff is fairly fresh in my head. Also, I won't be able to test next spring, because I'll be deployed to Afghanistan/Iraq. Next fall I'll be searching for a job outside of the Air Force. So, it kind of fits "now" while my workload is "stable and regular".
Yes in the sense that this is the "next step" in my (all-be-it paused-but-exciting) engineering career. Yes in the sense that what I need to do--legally--before I can call myself an "engineer" (lots of debate on this... I know)

No, in the sense that I won't get a pay increase (just like I didn't get a pay increase for getting a masters degree), and I won't be stamping things in the foreseeable future. Funny, I read in another post that sums it up:

TheTick; thread 730-70167: "In the near future, I plan to get my PE certification. In the distant future, I expect to never use it. For me, it is just part of being personally committed to holding a standard of competency and accountability in this oft misguided profession."

And lastly; no, because I reluctantly agree with cry22's post of "Powerless MEP Engineers";

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=217827&page=2

, where he provides a convincing argument, that it doesn't really mean much to the rest of the world.

But I still press on. Of course the whole issue stirs up alot of thought and emotion inside--as it should in you too. The whole debate of "to P.E. or to not-P.E." (well vetted in the forums) is troublesome. In my opinion, we should either be licensed as a profession or not. When I first graduated college, I was frustrated. "What!? you mean I spent all this time on an accredited degree and now I can't even be called an engineer"?!! Well, as I grow older, I see things differently. "Yes, young man. You need some experience before you are licensed." Every high-risk field has it's growing/apprentice period-- even after graduating from a top school. That's the way we did it in the combat flying community. That's the way they do it in the medical field. It's a necessity for any field that could yield the loss-of-life by negligence or incompetence. I get it.

I opt to get the P.E. sooner rather than later. Bottom line, it is a certification. This represents the MINIMUM standard for which one should be practicing engineering. In my eyes, you are no better of an engineer the day after you get a license than you were the day before you get a license. It's just a step along the way. The real measure is to keep growing and learning bit by bit. The engineer you are in 2012 will be far superior to the one you are in 2009.

For everyone's benefit, here are some notes on the Nevada P.E. process that you won't find on the website (they are buried in the statutes)

- Nevada lets you test BEFORE you apply. I.e. you don't have to get the experience and letters before you test for PE. Careful though... If you want comity with other states, you need to make sure that you have 4 years between the FE and the PE exams. This is how I am testing BEFORE I have the letters. I took the FE in 1993, with 4-years of practice in the middle, so comity shouldn't be an issue with me.

- You can only have two letters of reference from your employer. Talking to the board, they interpret my employer "the government" in my case. So I can only have two letters from the government and the other two have to come elsewhere.

Thanks again for all for the awesome comments. Getting the letters have a degree of effort, but I don't think it is insurmountable. All great ideas.

 

[RacingAZ]

darrell, I live in Phoenix metro but way east. Probably 60+ miles from Luke.

 

[DarrellThomasNV]

probably out there by the old lost Dutchman Mine. My daughter lives out there in Scottsdale--I get out there about once a month.

 

[TDAA]

Good responses. It sounds like you have gotten it pretty well worked out. Good luck on the test. Keep your even head, and you should do fine.

I am guessing you do not have additional testing in FL like the Civils do?

 

[DarrellThomasNV]

I don't think there are any additional tests in Florida.

Well, I took off the next two weeks from work to study for this test. I've been studying off-and-on for about 6 months, but this last two weeks is nothing but studying.

I'm breaking it down into three types of studying:
(1) Hard-core review. Basically "reteaching" myself any subject matter that I haven't used in while.

(2) Practice problems. The goal is to do these in a timed environment. Basically, I want to solve each problem within 6 minutes.

(3) Reading. This will allow a broader capture of simply "where to find" things that are not in my core studies.

For these last two weeks, I think I'll focus mostly on the practice problems.

 

[DarrellThomasNV]

Well I think the test went ok. Now, it's time for the waiting! When do you usually get the results?

 

[msquared48]

I do not think that you can get comity in Nevada from Florida without having your California license. Being in Washington, I looked into this a few years ago for reciprocity for my structural license. I gave it up when I found out about California.

I would concentrate on Florida as that is where you are best set up to take the test. Then worry about reciprocity to other states and waivers. First things first.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[TDAA]

Good to hear Darrell. If you feel good about it, that usually means good things.

I tested in VA, back in the day, and received news in mid January. In most states, you can usually find out good news faster by checking the website for a license. Sounds like you will just be getting test results though?

Good luck!

 

[DarrellThomasNV]

Right... in Nevada, you can do the "test only" option, or the "test+application". I did the "test only" option, since I did not have my 4 letters of recommendation for Nevada. I've got 2 of 4 since the thread started, but I've nearly exhausted all of my leads. I just don't know that many P.E.s. Once I beat the bushes and get the other two letters of recommendation, I will be able to finish the application.

It seem getting the 4 letters of recommendation is the most difficult part about the process!

 

[racookpe1978]

Military officer as well when I got my nuclear PE license, I think you'll find some similar fits between an airbase

(Doing repairs, overhauls, and testing and refits of aircraft OR missiles OR electronics OR avionics will count towards aero engineering work credits. Just "flying" won't count. In submarines, "repair and testing and construction" the reactors and submarine hulls counted towards engineering experience. "Just running the reactor" didn't count towards professional experience hours.)

My commanding officer was a PE in the Engineering Duty group at the shipyard where I was assigned. Good match, his signature certified both the "working for" and the "PE" requirements. You'll need somebody equal = An aero engineer who runs the maintenance, hangers, test facility, avionics, base facilities, test certification and planning, etc. And who is willing to say "Yes, this guy did "design, engineering, planning, evaluation and analysis" at these places at these times under these conditions." Often, depending on the state
s specific rules, the PE doesn't need to directly supervise you, sometime he/she does need to sirectly supervise you.

Another PE signature was from the shipyard construction and drydock supervisor - a civil/structural PE engineer who ran the facilities and base construction. Since I did several drydocking operations on my assigned subs, he could certify I was working under his control.

Your out-of-state experience (from FL ?) might still be creditable: Can you get a letter from your former CO or base commander or even the current base commander or facilities engineer in FL to say "So-and-so is certified to be assigned here at ABC AF Base from x/y/z to w/y/y doing avionics analysis and test planning and aircraft maintenance under engineering supervision and direction."

That might get you a few more months experience credit in both states. Even if the signature wasn't actually your boss for the time in question.

Remember, simple flying the aircraft won't count. It might have been fun. (It might not have been fun.) But it won't count. Only when the aircraft (Or missile. Or avionics gear. Or launch platform.) is broken will it count towards engineering time.

 

[DarrellThomasNV]

Well, got the results back this week. PASS!!! yeah!

I've rounded up two recommendation letters from P.E.s.. just need two more, and I'll be able to get the license