I have some great news to pass on to everyone. We have some new professionals on staff. Please join me in congratulating Scott Barrentine, P.E. and Lem Dial, P.E. They have been notified that they passed the Principals and Practice in Engineering Exam this spring, and they have received their professional engineering license. In a similar manner, we are also pleased to inform everyone that Ty Anderson and Lane Cox passed the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, and they are full-fledged engineer interns now.

In case you don’t know, in order to become a professional engineer one must complete a B.S. degree from an accredited engineering school, pass the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam, serve four years as an Engineer Intern under a professional engineer (or 3 years with a MS degree), and then pass the Principals and Practice in Engineering (PE) exam. The FE test, taken about the time an engineer graduates, tests the knowledge of the “wanna-be” engineer in a broad range of engineering subject matter. It is not enough that the engineer had to suffer through all the calculus, physics, statics, dynamics, structures, etc. classes, he or she must confirm that they didn’t forget it when they graduated. (Now what we may remember a few years down the road is another story entirely).

After the internship period, the engineer must take the PE exam, which tests his or her knowledge of more practical engineering applications, and their ability to use engineering judgment as they apply the fundaments of science to real-world problems.

As an engineer who has entered my 25th year as a P.E., and observing two new ones on a similar track, and two more getting that track underway, I am compelled to consider the stream of professional progress. Coincidentally, just last week I had a brief encounter with my mentor who had guided me through my three-year EI process and into the role of a PE. That conversation was about the compressive capacity of a concrete shaft, and it brought forth the specific things that he had shared with me in my little office in 1982. And we had to consider the practical use of engineering judgment in this particular case.

The intern period was created for a reason. The young men and women who graduate from engineering school know a lot about the theory of engineering, but really they know very little about the practice of engineering. I consider them a blank slate, but fully equipped to learn the profession. So you can see the tremendous responsibility that they have to pick (a) mentor(s) and to understand the thought process behind a decision. You can also see the responsibility that the PE must take on to provide a good source for instilling that professional understanding that must be conveyed. This mentoring process is far more than how to calculate a flow rate, a pile depth, or a pipe size. It involves how to understand a client’s needs, how to manage a project profitably, how to communicate with team members, how to obtain the information that is needed for the design, how to judge what is correct and what is suspicious, and the list goes on and on. When you think about it, a four-year intern process is really not that long for the equipping that must take place.

The professional engineer must take on an incredibly important role. Every job has some degree of “best engineering judgment”. Nothing is ever cut and dried. The text books become good references, but reality lies in forming an opinion about what will work and what won’t.
Our ethical responsibility to the public and to the environment is great. We must never become complacent in our effort to provide the service that we have gained these professional credentials to allow us to provide.

It doesn’t stop there. We have trained technicians and administrative assistants to perform vitally important tasks that comprise the practice of engineering that we perform on a daily basis. The data that a soils technician collects, the interpretation that a CAD designer must develop, the data assembly that the administrative assistant must perform; these are all vital parts of the professional practice. Although their internship is less formal, it is very similar to that of the engineer intern. As P.E.’s we carefully consider the ability of a technician or any assistant to exercise good judgment in particular assignments. So the professional progress of this important subset of our business is more judged by the professional engineers and professional geologists that oversee their work.

Aquaterra is a professional services firm. Everything that we do is devoted to providing quality professional opinions, recommendations and designs. The professional engineer bears the ultimate responsibility for the completed product, but they must trust in the good work of each and every person involved in the project from start to finish. So everyone reading this message take heart. Never, NEVER let complacency invade your work. The chain breaks at the weakest link. That part of the project that you do today is a link in the chain of the completed project. Make sure that your link is strong.

So, Scott and Lem, I hope that your intern period has provided you with the tools that are essential to execute best engineering judgment; that Aquaterra has provided the mentoring that you need to be the engineer that our profession deserves. Likewise, Ty and Lane, use your time effectively to glean from your P.E. supervisors what the practice is telling us to do.

You know, at times, I find myself pausing and looking back; thinking, “have I fulfilled the responsibilities of my professional credentials?” I’ll bet that you will too, many times in your professional progress. You don’t want to answer that question with anything but an emphatic “YES”.

Let us all remember that this is a professional progress. We never stop learning unless we choose to. We always have that responsibility to the public to do our job correctly and with integrity. Let’s all do a job that we can be proud of.