Professional Engineers Day (U.S.)

Last updated

Professional Engineers Day was launched by the National Society of Professional Engineers in 2016 to celebrate and raise public awareness of the contributions of licensed professional engineers in the United States. As of 2015, there were 474,777 licensed professional engineers in the U.S. [1] The first Professional Engineers Day was celebrated on August 3, 2016.

The National Society of Professional Engineers is a professional association representing licensed professional engineers in the United States. NSPE is the recognized voice and advocate of licensed Professional Engineers represented in 53 state and territorial societies and over 500 local chapters. The society is based in Alexandria, Virginia.

Regulation and licensure in engineering is established by various jurisdictions of the world to encourage public welfare, safety, well-being and other interests of the general public and to define the licensure process through which an engineer becomes authorized to practice engineering and/or provide engineering professional services to the public.

History

The idea for Professional Engineers Day came from Tim Austin, PE, a professional engineer from Kansas who served as president of the National Society of Professional Engineers in 2015-16. While promotion of engineering in the US is common, such as the attention given to STEM fields and events such as the USA Science and Engineering Festival and National Engineers Week (U.S.), which was also founded by NSPE in 1951, Austin believed attention should be paid specifically to the contributions of licensed professional engineers because of NSPE's core principle which states, "Being a licensed professional engineer means more than just holding a certificate and possessing technical competence. It is a commitment to hold the public health, safety, and welfare above all other considerations." "NSPE's Statement of Principles". 

USA Science and Engineering Festival

The biennial USA Science & Engineering Festival is a free science festival held in Washington, D.C.. The festival is the largest celebration of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in the United States. Serial Entrepreneur Larry Bock and senior directors of the Lockheed Martin Corporation founded the festival.

In the United States, National Engineers Week is always the week in February which encompasses George Washington's actual birthday, February 22. It is observed by more than 70 engineering, education, and cultural societies, and more than 50 corporations and government agencies. The purpose of National Engineers Week is to call attention to the contributions to society that engineers make. It is also a time for engineers to emphasize the importance of learning math, science, and technical skills.

Licensing of professional engineers in the US began in 1907, when Clarence Johnston, the state engineer of Wyoming, presented a bill to the Wyoming legislature that would require registration for those representing themselves to the public as an engineer or land surveyor. The bill was later enacted, making the state the first in the US to register engineers and land surveyors. [2]

On August 8, 1907, Charles Bellamy of Wyoming received the first professional engineering license. [3] Professional Engineers Day is held the first Wednesday in August to mark that occasion. Incidentally, Bellamy’s wife, Mary Godot Bellamy, is also known for a first: the first woman elected to the Wyoming legislature.

Mary Godat Bellamy (1861–1954) was the first woman elected to the Wyoming State Legislature. A resident of Laramie, she was one of the five state representatives elected at-large from Albany County in 1910. She gained the second-highest vote total, trailing leader Leslie A. Miller by just one vote. A schoolteacher by profession, she was married to Charles Bellamy, the first licensed professional engineer in America. Charles Bellamy, also a surveyor, supervised numerous surveys in the northern Rockies during his long career, including one survey in 1879 during which he named one of the most beautiful lakes in the Snowy Range, Lake Marie, in honor of his wife.

Charles Bellamy founded Bellamy & Sons Engineers in 1913. [4]

The Bellamy Chapter of the Wyoming Society of Professional Engineers is named in his honor.

Today, for the purpose of protecting the public, all US states and territories license professional engineers. [5]

To mark the inaugural Professional Engineers Day in 2016, governors from Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Wisconsin signed proclamations recognizing the contributions licensed professional engineers make to their states and society.

Related Research Articles

Software engineering is the application of engineering to the development of software in a systematic method.

Engineer Professional practitioner of engineering and its sub classes

Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build, and test machines, systems, structures and materials to fulfill objectives and requirements while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. The word engineer is derived from the Latin words ingeniare and ingenium ("cleverness"). The foundational qualifications of an engineer typically include a four-year bachelor's degree in an engineering discipline, or in some jurisdictions, a master's degree in an engineering discipline plus four to six years of peer-reviewed professional practice and passage of engineering board examinations.

Software engineer Practitioner of software engineering

A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to the design, development, maintenance, testing, and evaluation of computer software.

Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants. Their work takes account mainly of safety, technical, economic and environmental concerns, but they may also consider aesthetic and social factors.

The Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam, also referred to as the Engineer in Training (EIT) exam, and formerly in some states as the Engineering Intern (EI) exam, is the first of two examinations that engineers must pass in order to be licensed as a Professional Engineer in the United States. The exam is open to anyone with a degree in engineering or a related field, or currently enrolled in the last year of an ABET-accredited engineering degree program. Some state licensure boards permit students to take it prior to their final year, and numerous states allow those who have never attended an approved program to take the exam if they have a state-determined number of years of work experience in engineering. A selection of states allow those with ABET-accredited "Engineering Technology" or "ETAC" degrees to take the examination. The state of Michigan has no admission pre-requisites for the FE. The exam is administered by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES).

ABET, incorporated as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc., is a non-governmental organization that accredits post-secondary education programs in applied and natural science, computing, engineering and engineering technology.

The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) is an American non-profit organization dedicated to advancing professional licensure for engineers and surveyors. The Council’s members are the engineering and surveying licensure boards from all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These boards are divided into four geographic zones: Central, Northeast, Southern, Western. It is headquartered in Seneca, South Carolina, across Lake Hartwell from Clemson University.

The Sydney Accord is an international mutual recognition agreement for qualifications in the fields of engineering technology.

Engineering ethics is the field of system of moral principles that apply to the practice of engineering. The field examines and sets the obligations by engineers to society, to their clients, and to the profession. As a scholarly discipline, it is closely related to subjects such as the philosophy of science, the philosophy of engineering, and the ethics of technology.

The National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies (NICET) is an organization that was established in 1961 to create a recognized certification for engineering technicians and technologists within the United States. A 1981 study by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP), requested by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' SubCommittee On Construction, prompted the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) to merge two certification bodies; the Institute for the Certification of Engineering Technicians (ICET) and the Engineering Technologist Certification Institute. The result is a nonprofit organization that provides a nationally recognized and accepted procedure for recognition of qualified engineering technicians and technologists.

Engineer in Training, or EIT, is a professional designation from the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) used in the United States to designate a person certified by the state as having completed two requirements:

A Building Engineer is recognised as being expert in the use of technology in the design, construction, assessment and maintenance of the built environment. Commercial Building Engineers are concerned with the planning, design, construction, operation, renovation, and maintenance of buildings, as well as with their impacts on the surrounding environment.

The Principles and Practice of Engineering exam is the examination required for one to become a Professional Engineer (PE) in the United States. It is the second exam required, coming after the Fundamentals of Engineering exam.

Architectural engineer (PE)

Architectural engineer (PE) is a professional engineering designation in the United States. The architectural engineer applies the knowledge and skills of broader engineering disciplines to the design, construction, operation, maintenance, and renovation of buildings and their component systems while paying careful attention to their effects on the surrounding environment.

The Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge is a body of knowledge, set forth in a proposal by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) entitled Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge for the 21st century. This proposal seeks to identify and implement improvements to the education and licensure process for civil engineers in the United States of America. The proposal is intended to increase occupational closure by increasing the requirements to become a licensed engineer. Some have identified this joint effort with the Raising the Bar as not necessary.

Surveying in North America

Surveying in North America is heavily influenced by the United States Public lands survey system. It inherits the basis of its land tenure from the United Kingdom, as well as the other countries that established colonies, Spain and France.

References

  1. ↑ "NCEES Squared" (PDF). Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  2. ↑ "The History of NCEES" (PDF). National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  3. ↑ "Mary Godat Bellamy, Wyoming's First Woman Legislator | WyoHistory.org". www.wyohistory.org. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  4. ↑ "Professor of Practice, Dr. William D. Bellamy". www.uwyo.edu. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
  5. ↑ "NCEES member licensing boards". National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.