June 2014

COMMUNITIES: INDUSTRY
Survey Reveals Industry PEs’ Opinions

The overwhelming majority of members in NSPE’s Professional Engineers in Industry interest group reported that the image and stature of engineers is positive at their company, according to a new survey. The majority of members also reported that the PE license brings increased credibility at their company and an almost equal number reported their company supports PE licensure.

Close to 400 PEI members participated in the survey conducted in April, sharing their observations and opinions on topics such as industrial exemptions and engineer shortages. Once the results were collected, some members were contacted and asked to elaborate on their answers.

Industrial Exemptions
When asked whether state laws that exempt engineers in certain industries from engineering licensure requirements, where public safety and welfare is affected or at risk, should be eliminated, 73% of PEI members surveyed agreed or strongly agreed. Only 10% of PEI members surveyed disagreed or strongly disagreed, with the remaining 17% neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

“If you’re going to be an engineer you need to be licensed,” says Robert Reisdorff, P.E., president of Laminated Wood Systems. “If you have an exemption…there are no rules. They’re exempt, so continuing education and things like that don’t exist. Most people, to do their job properly, have to keep up with the times, but with licensing at least you’ve got some standardization to it.”

Katie Davis, P.E., director of engineering for enterprise at Ingersoll Rand, has seen firsthand how engineers with exemptions can impact public health and safety. She worked as a civilian for the US Air Force, where unlicensed engineers were responsible for equipment used by soldiers and in some cases their families. She also saw equipment failures.

“I think [licensed engineers] would have been better able to guide the contractor and guide the organization,” she says. “The public safety must come above all else. I would see several times where individuals in the Air Force would shy away from it and say, ‘a PE wasn’t required, and it’s the contractor’s fault.’ I’m like, you can say that, but if it’s required you’re being held to a little bit higher standard.”

William Danne, senior systems engineer at Boeing, is not convinced requiring all engineers to be licensed better protects public health, safety, and welfare.

“A recent example I didn’t like is the need to have PEs review offshore drilling designs,” he says. “What is needed is ‘independent’ reviews, especially with explicit risk management reviews. Once again, being registered or not does not ensure that these reviews are ‘independent’ and ‘rigorously’ performed to a standard that all stakeholders agree provides a reasonable public health and safety posture or environmental risk. While no longer in the oil and gas industry, I found that most oil and gas industry firms encouraged, promoted, and/or required their engineering staffs to be licensed. The breakdown occurred due to schedule and cost pressures coming from management overriding people’s better judgment and/or due to incorrect incentives. It certainly occurred due to failure to reevaluate the changing risk posture.”

Danne also challenges the idea that requiring a PE license ensures competency. “When it comes to product engineering, these are covered by many regulatory requirements and product liability law, including case law,” he says. “Will being a licensed PE change the product design in some useful way? I have a hard time seeing that it will. It begins to look instead as though we have chartered the ‘Engineering Club’ and you have to be in the club if you want to be able play the game. That doesn’t sit well with me generally.”

Engineer Shortages
The jobs of most PEI members appear to be secure, based on profit and staffing information collected through the survey. Forty-eight percent of PEI members surveyed reported profit at their company increasing in the last year, and only 13% reported profit at their company decreasing over the same period of time. Additionally, only 21% of PEI members surveyed reported staffing at their company decreasing in the last year, while 31% reported staffing at their company increasing over the same period.

Unfortunately for many companies and potentially industry as a whole, 45% of PEI members surveyed reported their company will experience engineer shortages because of retirements in the next five years.

“It’s going to be greatly significant, and we’re seeing it all over this country,” says Preston Frazier, P.E., a system architect at Northrop Grumman. “A lot of older workers are leaving the workforce and we’re not utilizing the youth.”

The problem could end up being bigger than just a shortage of engineers though, according to Manager of Environmental Processes at Texas Industries Nancy Garnett, P.E.

“It just seems like most everybody I’m working with within our industry, who have a lot of experience, are people about my generation, and I’m in the upper end of the spectrum,” she says. “So there’s an awful lot of experience walking out the door in the next five years possibly, or maybe a little bit longer if we’re lucky.”

“I think it’s going to have an impact on the experience level,” she continues. “The people that are left are going to have to relearn things that we already know and don’t have to think about, and whoever’s there is not going to have time to learn because there will be fewer people. So it’s a combined problem.”

Robert Reisdorff points to the electric utility industry as an example. “The industry went through a recession from the transmission side of things, the high-voltage side of things, for 22 years from 1975 to 1997,” he explains. “For 22 years they didn’t hire hardly any people; so there’s a big void of experience. There are real young engineers, and there are [old] engineers, and there’s a big void in between.”

Other Findings
The survey also asked PEI members to weigh in on the opportunities for women engineers at their company and the effect of offshoring in their industry.

Seventy-five percent of PEI members surveyed agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “women engineers have the same opportunities as men in my company.” However, 92% of PEI members surveyed were men. Among women PEI members surveyed, only 52% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement.

The majority of PEI members surveyed reported the effect of offshoring in their industry has been neutral. Only 18% of PEI members surveyed reported the effect has been negative, but even fewer, 6%, reported the effect has been positive. Reisdorff was part of the 18%, saying, “We’ve seen production facilities either underutilized or closed down and production moved to Asia, China, and then seen the results on the quality of material come back.” He adds, “When you try to copy a product and you don’t really know how it was originally designed, you can have problems.”

Who responded to the survey?

95% LICENSED PEs

16% RETIRED

8% SELF-EMPLOYED

8% FEMALE

61% AGE 56+

3% AGE 26–35

33% WORK IN THE UTILITIES INDUSTRY

8% WORK IN THE OIL INDUSTRY

8% WORK IN THE AEROSPACE INDUSTRY

My employer supports PE licensure.

Strongly Agree 37.3%

Agree 28.7%

Neither Agree nor Disagree 18.8%

Disagree 6.3%

Strongly Disagree 1.8%

N/A 7.0%

The PE license brings increased credibility in my company.

Strongly Agree 35.9%

Agree 31.8%

Neither Agree nor Disagree 18.2%

Disagree 6.8%

Strongly Disagree 2.1%

N/A 5.2%

In my company, ethical behavior is encouraged.

Strongly Agree 67.4%

Agree 21.2%

Neither Agree nor Disagree 5.7%

Disagree 0.8%

Strongly Disagree 0%

N/A 4.9%

Does your company or organization offer a mentoring program for young engineers?

Yes 49.4%

No 37.4%

N/A 13.2 %

I report to:

A licensed professional engineer 27.2%

An engineer who is not licensed 27.7%

A nonengineer 23.6%

N/A 21.5%