Where to find a mentor 1

[phwgray]

Good day,

I'm about to get my Professional Engineer designation in Canada and thinking of opening structural engineering consulting firm. I have only 2 years of structural design experience but looking at work of other engineers I feel pretty confident about my skills. I do realize I luck the experience and therefore I was thinking of hiring a mentor who could review my work once in a while and who can point me in right direction when needed. One thing I'm not sure is where to find him/her. I guess the perfect mentor would be a recently retired engineer who wouldn't mind spending few hours here and there. This website doesn't allow recruitment posts so I can't post my ad here. Does anyone have any ideas where I can try to find a mentor?

Thanks

 

[moltenmetal]

Here's what we know:

1) You work in Canada
2) You are about to get your professional engineering LICENSE- it's a license, not a "designation"
3) Everywhere in Canada, it takes four years of mentored work experience in engineering at minimum to obtain a P.Eng. license
4) You have two years of structural design experience
5) Generally a P.Eng. license is insufficient here for a candidate to become a sole proprietor or corporation offering professional engineering services to the public. A 2nd license is required, which in Ontario is called a Certificate of Authorization

By simple math, you must have at least 2 years of engineering experience not related to structural engineering.

Letting us know your age and how many years of non-structural engineering experience you actually have would be helpful if we were to provide you with advice.

If in fact you only have two years of other experience and are just now meeting the experience requirement for your P.Eng. license, you are far too young to be seeking clients on your own as a full time business. You can try, but the likelihood of failure is very high indeed. I'd suggest to you that you need 10 yrs or more of relevant work experience before you can realistically consider hanging out your own shingle to sell your services directly to the public. Unless you already have a more or less captive client lined up, i.e. a family member who can and will feed you enough business to keep you fed, success seems unlikely at best.

The other hurdle would be insurance. I'd have that well nailed down before proceeding.

Most people work for a while (4-6 yrs) after gaining their license, gain mentorship from others working for their employer, build a network in the industry, gain the trust of a client base, and then venture out. It's done that way for good reasons.

 

[canwesteng]

Depending on where you live - in Saskatchewan you need permission to consult in order to offer consulting services, but only firms of two engineers or more need the CoA.

 

[phwgray]

Beside the 2 years of structural design experience I have around 5 years of project management experience from owner's, contractor's, developer's and consultant's perspectives and I am well familiar with construction project completion particulars in Canada. Also, Im 30 yo.

My province (MB) does not require any additional experience to obtain certificate of authorization. Regarding the e&o insurance I was preapproved few months ago - one condition is that I can't work on condos.

I think the best option would be reaching to association and seeking a mentor through them. Information they have on their website is more for students and interns.

Jayrod12, how did you figure Im from Winnipeg?

 

[jayrod12]

In everyone's profile when you click on it, there's a little bit at the end of the blurb that has province and country, or state and country as applicable. Yours (and mine) say (MB, CA)

 

[MotorCity]

While I applaud your enthusiasm and eagerness, if I was one of your clients, I would not have a warm fuzzy feeling about the owner of a consulting firm who was looking for a mentor.

 

[TheDW]

http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-mark-zuckerberg-tech-ceo-mentors-2016-3

If Gates and Zuckerberg have mentors/had mentors when they were first starting their businesses, then I sure as heck want one too

 

[kmart30]

Just do it and go for it!

I was in a similar situation a few years back and I am glad I took the leap of faith. It is not easy and you will find yourself working insane amount of hours but in my opinion the pros outweigh the cons. Its good that you have construction experience as this will help you with the big picture of things as it did with me but make sure you stick with projects you have experience in. When I was building I was working mostly with CMU/wood and this is where a majority of my design experience is in as well. The projects I get opportunities on outside the bulk of my experience I usually pass on or make sure there is enough time in the budget to brush up on things. I stick to mostly the smaller projects(residential mostly, some site specific engineering, and very small commercial)that I have most of my experience in but I do take on the occasional project that will challenge me. When I do come across something challenging for me I jump into the books, old notes, come on this forum, or reach out to some other colleagues. Another option you might look into are those freelance websites(upwork, elance ect.) I had a colleague find a PE on one of those sites help him with some design work he needed some expertise on and I think it worked out ok for him...just a thought.

Another huge thing to consider is how you are going to get clients and pay the bills until you get some momentum. Right now we are fortunate to have an excessive amount of work coming in but I know it is only a cycle and times will change. If you cant get work there is no need for a mentor.... You are no longer just an engineer pumping out designs, you now have to run a business or at least until you can hire someone to do one or the other. Good luck!