Sounds like a great man, Jim, definitely an Engineer. My father was a PE, but he would never hesitate to tell people that I was an engineer. He was a university professor, but got his PE to be able to work as an expert witness/consultant. In his field (EE), the majority are not licensed.
A very small percentage of the engineering graduates in fields other than civil engineering go through the hassle of obtaining their licenses as professional engineers as there is very little reason to do so.
James Fleming, post: 432601, member: 136 wrote: This. There is a difference between saying you are an engineer and saying your are a licensed professional engineer.
What about cases where licence examinations don't apply? There are dozens of graduate programs in aeronautical engineering, but no NCEES exam in that discipline. What should an aeronautical engineer call him or herself? According to the certificate hanging over there on the wall, licensing didn't make me a "surveyor"; it made me a "Professional Land Surveyor". I find the idea of an administrative arm of the state government appropriating a word as generic as "engineer' and fining someone for using it, in a non commercial setting, odious.
This is an excerpt from my father's obituary from nine years ago:
[INDENT]He obtained a bachelor??s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Dayton in 1960, and a master??s degree in nuclear engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology in 1965. He was commissioned as a reserve officer in the U.S. Air Force after attending the Air Force Officers Training School and augmented into the regular Air Force in 1963 while in graduate school.
He resigned his commission after 10 years of service at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory and Sandia & Los Alamos National Laboratories to pursue continuing civilian research opportunities with the federal government initially at the Naval Research Laboratory, and subsequently at the Defense Nuclear Agency (the military successor to the "Manhattan Project" ) in Washington, D.C., from which he retired in 1996.
Mr. Fleming spent his career investigating technology to ensure the survivability of military weapon systems and communications systems in a nuclear weapons wartime environment. His research efforts included planning, executing and directing theoretical and test programs simulating the weapons environment and evaluating these effects; these included the conduct of underground nuclear weapons tests, rocket-borne geophysical chemical measurements and involved many systems, including defense communication networks and the U.S. Army Anti-Missile Defense System; he conceived and implemented a test facility in use to evaluate effects of nuclear detonations on commercial communication and power transmission systems. [/INDENT]
No matter what a state board may say, the man was an engineer.
He used the title Engineer to lend credibility to his work.
As well he should. He is an engineer. He is not licensed as a Professional Engineer, but that takes nothing away from his training and knowledge of engineering. Obtaining one's license does not make them any smarter or skilled than any other engineer in the world. It simply allows them to do certain things that they cannot do for profitmaking without a license. It's the profitmaking sanctioning that is the primary excuse to go to the effort of obtaining a license. That is why so very few outside of civil engineering bother to get a license. The vast majority of engineers are employed in industry, education and government where licensure is of little concern.
I know many engineers who aren't PE's and still refer to themselves as engineers. Some even have masters in engineering. I'm not sure how many engineering professors are licensed, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that they usually aren't. How many engineers working for companies offering engineering services are not licensed, probably many, I know of dozens who aren't.
They can't own the business or sign plans, but they do the work and they are getting a paycheck. If this guy wasn't offering services for payment or designing plans, then he wouldn't have any problem in my state, offering an opinion and saying you have an engineering degree is him being truthful, hardly rule breaking.
The fact that we are having this ridiculous discussion shows how the regulatory state is out of control.
He's not just some guy who is casually calling himself an engineer at cocktail parties. He is using a reserved title in an engineering field in which he is not trained or qualified to communicate to the public his purported expert opinion.
And he admitted to the charges, for crying out loud.
No the regulatory state is not out of control.
In this case the board is correct.
The licensing board is simply co-opting words that had a meaning long before the licensing laws. As an undergraduate I didn't even know that it was illegal to call myself a this or that until I became licensed. I'll bet there are others that became aware after choosing education too.
The licensing boards need to make strict terms on how use of "their" words gets judgement. If a person is practicing without a license, then that is endangering the public. However, if in a casual conversation, in an occupational listing at work or at play, then I don't see the need for enforcement.
The words already have meaning and are taken at face value by most of the public at-large. Fraud is a crime. However it is a little too extreme to not be able to use these co-opted words in conversation.
Historic boundaries and conservation efforts.
Yeah - no regulations. Let's all go live in Somalia where we can be free from government oppression.
Wait... I didn't fully think that out - it's hot there (and there's a drought) - we should just get rid of the laws and regulations here in the USA. We'll all just do what's right and we'll all be free.
If you think that there should be reasonable law/regulation and you think the current law/regulation isn't reasonable - PROPOSE A SOLUTION - otherwise it's just whining.
Boards aren't trying to stick-it to the public - they are trying to protect the public. If they don't have it right - learn about the situation and HELP them make it right.
Why was the term "engineer" regulated in the first place?
Was there a problem with people scamming others by calling themselves engineers when they weren't?
While I'm sure it happens on occasion (and may have happened a lot in times when a corrupt government body ruled - does this sound familiar Louisiana and Chicago?), I don't see engineering/surveying regulations being implemented without some valid basis.
What does happen is these regulations get written to address one problem and there are unanticipated consequences because of the language or changing business environment, or ??? When that happens it's up to professionals to propose solutions so the problem can be fixed without causing other issues.
JKinAK, post: 432788, member: 7219 wrote:
....,..
Why was the term "engineer" regulated in the first place?
Was there a problem with people scamming others by calling themselves engineers when they weren't?.....
In Calif. Engineers became regulated because of the 1928 St. Francis dam failure.