Hello all, I recently brought on an EIT that has been a surveying intern with us the last two summers while he’s been in college full-time. He fell in love with surveying (rightfully so), but also continued to finish his engineering degree. After he graduated and passed his FE he still wanted to work for us and we definitely wanted him to; the issue is, we do not have engineers on staff, being strictly a surveying firm at this time. I’m open to eventually doing engineering at our company, but I can’t get him the experience he needs to become a PE and don’t want to lose him to an engineering company as he’s already proven to be a valuable asset to the team and shows great potential to progress. Has anyone been in a similar scenario for have an idea on how to get him some experience? Ive spoken with a few engineers we work with regularly about outsourcing some work to us for him to complete and then review it, but the volume just isn’t there for them to justify being able to sign off actual time for him.
Yeah, that's a tough spot to be in. Does he want to be dual licensed eventually or...? If he truly enjoys surveying and working at your company then maybe have him take the PE before he forgets everything and then see if he's willing to put the engineering license on the backburner until your company creates an engineering group.
Tricky situation but it's great to see that you are concerned for his future as a PE.
Perhaps you should have a discussion with him about him going elsewhere to get the required experience and then bringing him back to start an engineering department for you when he is a PE.
I truly like what @chris-bouffard states. It is awesome you are concerned about this person. That shows true leadership. Hopefully you can navigate and guide him to look at all the options so he can make a wise decision. Keep up those great leadership skills.
My first LS I worked for took me to a company and the LS and he told me I should go to work for them when he retired. He was a great leader and mentor. He was looking out for me not just himself and the company.
