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johnl@iecc.com
Date: 9 May 2017 19:38:42 -0000

It's true that they fined him for calling himself an Engineer, and these days, that is ridiculous. It is also clear from the context that they did so out of malice, because they didn't like what he said about red light cameras that generate ticket revenue.

In Oregon, the semi-independent Board of Examiners for Engineering and
Land Surveying licenses professional engineers and has for a long time. PEs sign blueprints and similar safety critical documents.
Every state has a similar PE licensing system, and it's an important part of what keeps our roads and bridges and oil refineries and other construction projects safe. Some engineering grads do the extra work to get a PE license, some don't, depending on whether they plan a career that involves stuff that PEs have to sign.

For example, my father has two engineering degrees but never got a PE license because he designed and built airplane fuel gauges and other electronic instruments for which the license isn't relevant. He has never called himself a PE because he isn't one. Nonetheless he is a life member of the IEEE (and before that a member of the ISA and IRE.)

In sensible places, which I think includes the other 49 states, they regulate the term Professional Engineer. When I look at the Oregon law, it is ambiguously written, about whether the regulated term is professional engineer or plain engineer, and it was a mistake not to challenge the $500 ticket in the first place. Given the wide usage of the term engineer to refer to people who don't have a license, I expect courts would throw it out on first amendment grounds. Perhaps the IEEE, which welcomes both licensed and unlicensed engineers, would offer an amicus brief.

PS: I agree that calling people "Software Engineers" is an egregious misuse of language. So-called software engineers don't have any of the training that actual engineers do, other than perhaps taking a few of the same courses in school.

I realize the software engineer horse has long left the barn, there is a fairly well agreed definition of what such a person does, and no sensible person confuses us with a licensed PE.


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