Posted on 3/30/2003, 7:48:35 AM by Cincinatus' Wife
AUSTIN -- One of the oddest battles of the 78th Legislature is pitting Texas' licensed professional engineers against the high-tech industry's software dudes.
At issue is just who in Texas can call himself an engineer.
"It's one of the silliest issues we're having to deal with this session, but it's also one of the most important," said Steven Kester, legislative director of the American Electronics Association, an organization of computer companies.
Texas has one of the nation's strictest engineering practices acts and limits the title of engineer to those people who have studied engineering and passed a licensing exam.
And that law puts most of the "engineers" in the high-tech industry out of the field. Kester said the restriction threatens high-tech growth in Texas.
But Ken Rigsbee, chairman of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers legislative committee, said the restriction is needed to protect the public.
Rigsbee said state restrictions on who can call themselves engineers were set up decades ago after someone misengineered a heating pipe system at the New London Junior-Senior High School.
An explosion of natural gas in the pipe system killed 300 students and teachers in 1937.
Rigsbee said the licensed professional engineers of Texas have been protecting their title from encroachment ever since. There are 49,000 state-licensed professional engineers.
Rigsbee said the high-tech problem mostly involves computer programmers whom the industry likes to call computer engineers.
Rigsbee said the industry holds out its products as having been "engineered." And he said there is a belief that the computer companies are in a better position to win contracts if they can say they have 150 engineers on staff instead of 150 programmers.
"What we have a problem with is a graduate of a two-year computer programming school or some technicians ... holding themselves out as engineers when they clearly are not," Rigsbee said.
The computer industry had been happy to function under an exemption in state law that allowed a company to call in-house personnel whatever it wanted to so long as the engineering title was not held out to the public.
But the Texas Board of Professional Engineers sent cease-and-desist letters to some high-tech industry specialists who used the title of engineer in correspondence.
That led to a request to former Attorney General John Cornyn to clarify the issue. Cornyn last July said the matter is simple when it comes to state law.
"The Texas Engineering Practice Act ... does not allow an in-house employee of a private corporation, though classified internally as an `engineer' or under another engineering title, to use the title `engineer' on business cards, cover letters or other forms of correspondence that are made available to the public," Cornyn said.
Boom. In a single sentence, the computer programming engineers of Texas became software dudes.
Actually, while software programmers make up the bulk of the high-tech industry's engineers, the industry also uses the title for electrical and mechanical engineers not licensed by the state. Texas Instruments also has "customer support engineers."
"Texas is becoming a laughingstock of the global high-technology community," said Steve Taylor, director of corporate affairs for Applied Materials.
Taylor said there are about 100,000 high-tech personnel in Texas who have "engineer" in their title, but they are not licensed by the state.
"They risk fines of up to $3,000 a day for handing out business cards to a supplier or even dropping it in a fish bowl at a restaurant for a chance at a free lunch," Taylor said.
AEA's Kester said electronics professionals from around the country are called engineers within their firms and in the industry. Suddenly, he said, they are now required to carry one set of business cards for Texas and another for the other 49 states.
"It's a matter of professional pride," Kester said. "They've built up a lot of experience and earned the title of engineer in their industry."
Kester said the electronics industry has made changing the state law a top priority because it is making it difficult to recruit employees from other states and around the world.
"We run the risk of not having them move here," Kester said. "That puts us at a significant disadvantage."
Legislation to loosen the title requirements is being carried by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa.
Sales engineers are usually engineers that have moved into sales. Although some sales people hang engineer on the end of their title after they learn how to plug in and turn on whatever they are selling. A good sales engineer will have more in depth product knowledge and may have actually helped to design the product. I deal with a lot of sales people and sales engineers selling electronic / electromechanical stuff - I generally prefer to deal with the sales engineers.
Dumb ass politicians. I've already put my company on notice that I will do no computer related work in the state of Oregon after they made a felon out of a Randal L. Schwartz for pointing out a glaring security defect at an Intel office while performing contract work for them. Perhaps it is time to add Texas to that list too.
When he can handle the responsibility for the hazzards to which his product subjects others.
So what do they call EE's without a PE cert in Texas? Electrical Smithee? EE lite? In my book if you graduated with an EE degree you are an engineer - if you want to add PE to your title you got to jump through the appropriate hoops. Strange law.
IEEE is not a licensing board or regulatory agency and you don't have to be an engineer to be a member. Little member cliques set up those groups and select the name of their publication.
The term "software engineer" is not new, but it has always been an attempt to scam prestige and credibility where none has been earned.
A guy with a Ph.D. in electrical engineering can't call himself an engineer with passing some very tough exams AND fulfilling a four-year supervised work requirement. Likewise mechanical, civil, etc ...
Why should some VB script kiddie be allowed to call himself one just because he likes the way it sounds?
I have a BSEE and passed the fundamentals of engineering exam, but I still can't hang out a shingle as an engineer because I haven't fulfilled the requirement for four years work in the field supervised by a licensed P.E.
They want to use the term because it has prestige, but the term only has prestige because not just anyone can use it.
I would expect that there could be a way to regulate the dispensation of licenses to practice software engineering, but I think the requirements should be a bit stricter than just having some cards printed up.
LOL. No it isn't "overkill" There are engineering documents that by local, state AND federal law must have a Professional Engineering seal placed on them. The seal is the personal assurance of the Registered Professional Engineer that he/she has reviewed the document and has found it to be correct and to meet the latest, best engineering practices. It makes the PE personally liable for the design he stamped. Are computer "engineers" willing to take on that personal liability with software they engineer or for the work product of those they supervise? The title "Engineer" is just as specific as the title "Doctor" or "Attorney" and all of them have rigorous standards that must be met.
I want to move to a place where your book is the law of the land ;-)
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