The Importance of Titles

This is in response to the “You Said It” replies (March/April 2018) to the use and stature of the term “engineer” by society. As a degreed engineer, I really don’t feel slighted at all, or feel that the profession has been “diluted” in name, when some other occupation uses the word engineer in their description or title. After all, imitation is the highest form of flattery, as they say. Having the “PE” on e-mail signatures, business cards, and letterhead is more than enough entitlement for me. My honest experience: In 20+ years as a PE in industry with other mostly nonlicensed engineers, use of my PE title, either in verbal or written conversation, has never been regarded as elitist. It’s simply been honored as a professional achievement, akin to an educational degree, and it stops there. My professional associates, PE or not, all know that having it doesn’t substitute my need for the talent, skill, and aptitude to be a useful engineer.

I think it’s more in the way certain people promote themselves. I’ve run across some rather arrogant engineers in my day who have tried very hard to impress me with their titles, experience, etc., more so than using their engineering skills to actually help solve problems. One of the first things I was taught in engineering school by a wise, old professor (PE and PhD), was to always respect experience, but only trust the facts. He told me that experience, titles, opinions, etc., don’t matter in the scheme of things. We can’t get too hung up on titles. In our profession particularly, the only thing that matters is what you can prove.

Bob Shannon, P.E.
Latham, NY

Props for AV Guide

In March, NSPE released a policy guide providing public policy decision-makers, regulators, manufacturers, and others with guidelines to measure the safety readiness of autonomous vehicles under consideration for deployment. Read more about “Autonomous Vehicles: A Public Regulatory Policy Guide.”

This is excellent guidance. Well done! I, for one, am very excited to see NSPE weigh in on this topic in such a thoughtful way. Not to trivialize public input, industry leaders, or policy makers, but with this guidance, it feels like the “adults in the room” have refocused the conversation in a meaningful way. Here, a team of qualified professionals prioritizes public safety and careful product development and testing without influence by profit or blind excitement over a shiny new toy. It makes me proud to be a PE to see NSPE out in front on this emerging technology. I have shared the press release on LinkedIn and written a blog post about it. Nice work everyone!

Keith Kearsley, P.E.
Eugene, OR

It is an excellent step to insert the PE posture into this evolving autonomous vehicle technology, especially since public safety is the most critical concern. Put another way, the present highway regulations and conventions intimately assume that a live, educated, and alert human is continuously in full control of the vehicle; while the AV falls short on at least one of these assumptions. Even at this present “best,” modern day driver actions result in about 40,000 traffic deaths annually on US highways every year.

I envision AVs in the future will be like autopilots in aircraft: Safe AV function will evolve in near-future vehicles that will allow the long-term (“cruise”) phase of a trip to be autonomous, with the driver present and moderately attentive while lane maintenance, vehicle spacing, turn anticipation, and turn execution are autonomous as the driver observes, but is not wearied by, these countless similar tasks. A step further will be travel over closed, dedicated AV courses (sorties such as mail delivery and shuttle operations) where AV function is autonomous with safeguard accessories. The bright future for AVs is that such dedicated AV courses will proliferate and a substantial fraction of all vehicular traffic will use that AV mode.

We as PEs will, or should, participate in these developments to the greatest degree possible, with the attitude that we always engineer with safety in mind, so as to hasten the day when autonomous vehicles are safe and productive for our society.

Angelo Campanella, P.E., Ph.D.
Hilliard, OH

NSPE HQ

@NSPE Mar 1

Shout out to our Ontario friends as they celebrate their first annual #PEngDay recognizing the value and contributions of professional engineers! @PEO_HQ