NSPE State Delegate Nominee–Tennessee
Joseph (Joe) Carson, P.E.

Summary of Experience and Service to Engineering Profession

I am a decades-long member of NSPE as well as science and engineering societies AAAS, ANS, and ASME. Over the decades, I have served in numerous leadership positions in them, at local and/or national level.

Candidate Statement

I am interested in serving as the Tennessee Delegate to the NSPE House of Delegates as part of my efforts to be a “good ancestor” in my remaining spins around the sun.

Simply put, I am not optimistic those born in 2025 will get to die natural deaths - I see largescale, if not near-total, civilizational collapse in coming decades as all-too-possible and increasingly likely. My response is to “move the needle” in my spheres of particular public influence away from civilizational doom and towards a world that works for all. The Gospel of Jesus is about transforming the world into one that works for all. So on I faithfully trudge.

These are my perceptions/public claims:

• I am GOAT - Greatest of All Time - federal agency whistleblower. Despite that, my unresolved whistleblower disclosures - unresolved despite four trips to US Supreme Court - have significant, if not existential, implications for American health, safety, security and welfare.
• I am “Engineer Zero” as a catalyst to the engineering profession consciously evolving its mission to “Engineers apply laws of math and discoveries of science to the universe’s natural resources to create a world that works for all.”
• NSPE is failing in its mission to make PE licensure the norm because its leaders and member apparently lack the moral courage to examine its stewardship of its writ for our common good.
• NSPE will neither affirm or deny that it has any writ for our common good, making it less than a professional society and more like a trade union, where the only question members, prospective members or former members should ask is “what is in it for me?” when considering writing a dues check. From being a NSPE member since 1988, the benefits of membership do NOT justify the NSPE dues. Absent NSPE having a writ for the common good, then there is no “ought” aspect of NSPE membership either.
• A basic aspect of American polity is “limited self-government.” One result of this polity is that professions in America have a greater degree of self-regulation than in other advanced countries - and, I contend, creates the “ought” aspect of NSPE membership that I use to justify writing dues checks and serving in other ways. This is because the engineering profession, as other professions, acknowledges their self-regulation as a privilege, not a right, and that they justify it on the basis of protecting the common good, not the self-interest of their members.
• NSPE’s code of ethics is fundamentally unethical in scope and implementation - there is no valid social contract between NSPE - or the engineering profession as a whole - with its members. The profession expects its members to risk their employment and careers, when necessary, to adhere to its code of ethics, but does NOTHING to protect them - or the public health, safety or welfare - when they are so foolhardy to do so.
• Not a single NSPE Board of Ethical Review (BER) case addresses “what do the many owe the one?” for a whistleblowing engineer - not in over 600 cases - while many BER cases state that NSPE’s code of ethics can require its members to risk their employment and careers when necessary to “hold paramount the public health, safety and welfare in the performance of professional duty.”
• My first job as an engineer was to play an active role in the deaths of 20 million people, if so ordered, as an engineering division officer on a nuclear missile submarine. That was almost 50 years ago, when the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was nine minutes to midnight, where midnight signifies human caused destruction of civilization. It is now set at 89 seconds of midnight, learn more here.
• The crowning achievement of the engineering profession is a modern mega-city. But....other signal achievements of the engineering profession - nuclear weapons and their delivery systems - can reduce a mega-city to smoking pile of radioactive rubble, from half a world away, within half an hour. As much as NSPE, as the profession as a whole, lacks a valid social contract with its members, please do not tell me that the scope and implementation of engineering ethics is not relevant to life on earth.
• If I am elected, expect me to be change agent in NSPE to make NSPE be and be seen as an excellent steward of its writ for our common good, with respect to its significant role in the significant self-regulation of the engineering profession. Expect me to point to the engineering disasters I have witnessed in my employment in the Department of Energy - engineering disasters to which NSPE, as the profession as a whole, have taken NO responsibility, as providing compelling reasons for federal agencies to require their experienced engineers to be licensed and to flow that requirement down to engineers working for government contractors.
• These engineering disasters are: 1) the engineering disaster of the Department of Energy sick workers, and 2) the engineering disaster of the environment devastation of Department of Energy facilities and surrounding areas.

To summarize facts about these engineering disasters.

• About 150,000 Department of Energy workers (or surviving spouses) have received over 20 billion dollars in compensation, in essential part because the engineers responsible for their workplace health and safety put their professional standing and economic security ahead of their professional duty to protect them. And the profession has yet to ask “just what might be inadequate about the scope and implementation of engineering ethics and PE licensure in light of this engineering disaster?” Learn more.
• Engineering disaster of the environment devastation of Department of Energy facilities and surrounding areas - the third largest liability of the federal government’s balance sheet is the estimated clean-up costs of these facilities, land areas, groundwater, etc. - over 500 billion dollars. The engineering profession has yet to ask “just what might be inadequate about the scope and implementation of engineering ethics and PE licensure in light of this engineering disaster?” Learn more.

Summary

Vote for me if you agree that our unprecedented global civilization is UTTERLY dependent on its engineered underpinnings, now and forevermore, as long as it sustains and, given that, engineering ethics needs to be more than eyewash - they are worth defending and upholding, and not just by foolhardy engineers, but by the profession as a whole.

Vote for me if you think our common good will be better advanced and protected if PE licensure becomes the norm in federal agencies and their contractors with the expectation that if such a significant fraction of engineers - of all disciplines - need to licensed as a condition of their employment, then unlicensed engineers, regardless of discipline, will be at a competitive disadvantage - the industrial exemption will then die a natural death, no state legislation needed.