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Comment by jacckat8 | Hacker News Reader

You're only a professional engineer if you pass the PE exam.

You can't legally present yourself as a professional engineer without that license.

It isn't credible to assume that anyone who identifies themselves as an engineer is fraudulently asserting to be a National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying Professional Engineer. It's a huge linguistic power grab to call that confusing. "Here's a common noun for a profession, and now you can't use it without paying us" is a nice business plan for collecting rents indefinitely.

The issue as described in the article is holding himself out as a “professional engineer” because that implies licensure. Specifically here the issue is that it is a claim to a legally relevant credential...i.e. as qualified to render expert opinion in a legal context.

> The issue as described in the article is holding himself out as a “professional engineer” because that implies licensure.

I will guarantee you that is not how that vast majority of the population would interpret it. Very few people even know that there is such a thing as a licensed professional engineer.

Most reasonable people would take the term "professional engineer" to mean somebody who performs engineering work of some sort in a professional capacity.

Actual doing something should take precedence over some license primary used to gatekeep a profession and fill state coffers with licensing fees.

The fact that we still have guilds operating in the 21st century is embarrassing.

>I will guarantee you that is not how that vast majority of the population would interpret it.

I disagree.

>Very few people even know that there is such a thing as a licensed professional engineer.

>Most reasonable people would take the term "professional engineer" to mean somebody who performs engineering work of some sort in a professional capacity.

Where did you source this information?

If someone calls themselves a professional musician, what would you think?

I would think it was a non-sequiter.

Not really. I have an EE degree and know all about PE. My point is people commonly call themselves a professional _xyz_ for many other professions. Why should engineering be any different? Just because some organization wants you to? It is fine if you are required to have a cert to say sell things to the general public, or to have plans approved for buildings etc. but no so to try and control who gets to be called a "professional" or to regulate speech in general.

It's not just some organization, there is a law in california.

https://www.bpelsg.ca.gov/laws/pe_act.pdf

If you don't like the law, complain to your local state legislator. For me, it didn't affect my ability to do my job or get employed, so I never cared about it. I supposed they could change the name to "licensed engineer. It doesn't bother me that the person designing roads, buildings or electrical distribution systems has to be licensed. My wife has a friend (Civil Engineer, PE) and it seems like all she does is review/approve stuff done by architects.

That's kind of the point of the whole conversation. You can't have a law that restricts what one can call yourself that does not violate the 1st amendment. Certainly you can require one to have a certificate to do certain kinds of work however.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm assuming whoever wrote the act at least reviewed it with one. Here is a snippet what is says. 6787. Acts constituting a misdemeanor ... (h) Use the title, or any combination of that title, of “professional engineer,” “licensed engineer,” “registered engineer,” or the branch titles specified in Section 6732, or the authority titles specified in Sections 6736 and 6736.1, or “engineer-in-training,” or use any abbreviation of such title that might lead to the belief that the person is a licensed engineer, is authorized to use the titles specified in Section 6736 or 6736.1, or holds a certificate as an engineer-in-training, without being licensed, authorized, or certified as required by this chapter.

So it seems like we do have a law (at least in California) that say something like that.

You would be surprised to learn then that California has many unconstitutional laws on the books.

In this specific case is it the law that's restricting his speech, or the licensing's boards actions? I'm not necessarily taking an opinion on the actual merits of the case in the article, if anything I does sound like they are infringing on his right to free speech. But that doesn't necessarily mean the law is unconstitutional. It's easy to say something is or is not constitutional, but the end of the day we have courts to decide these questions. If I still disagree I feel strongly about it I need to contact somebody who can actually change it. Am I really going to make my beliefs about what is or isn't constitutional based on some comment posted on the internet?

Yeah I have to say I also disagree. I'm EE, 20+ years of "professional" experience and I would never use the the term "Professional Engineer" to describe myself and I don't ever recall any collegues using that term who were not licensed. Pretty much every Engineer I know understands the difference and would never use the term. It's like saying you are a lawyer when you haven't passed the bar. In fact within the industry you would typically refer to those people as a "PE" (even if they were Civil, Mechanical or Electrtical in training). Of course it is totally fine to use the term professional in a descriptive manner, i.e. "We expect you to act in a professional manner when speaking with the customer". Of course this is only an American thing as far as I know, I have no idea what the practice would be in say Australia.

'Professional Engineer' is a specific legal qualification. Further this isn't a case of lay people using a term incorrectly, this is a case of a professional engineer leading a movement to change professional engineering, using the term to help establish his expertise in marketing material.

He's not representing himself as such to a potential client or in the context of a for-pay project, but as part of a talk. He's a person who made his living from engineering, so in that context it makes perfect common sense.

He represented himself as such to the public. The fact that he represented himself that way speaks to the value he himself placed on the credentials.

The term "professional engineer" is protected much like the term "medical doctor." Practicing medicine without a license is illegal in all states. It is perfectly credible that someone practicing an occupation is licensed to practice that occupation. The license mandates training and achievement of a minimum level of competence, which serves the public good.

I think this is a very reasonable position.

Reason magazine posted an article on this:

"https://reason.com/2021/05/25/minnesota-threatens-to-fine-th..."

While I generally oppose attempts to regulate the term "engineer", I do think Reason was a little fast and loose here. It wasn't like they went in and objected to the term "sound engineer" in a recording studio or "software engineer" at google. This was a case of using a term in a situation where it could cause confusion, although even in this case, I side with the person who wants to use the term, and against the PE regulators. I do think that professional engineering associations do have the right to create a terminology. I would just be much more restrictive in scope.

I looked into regulations around Industrial Engineering, since I have an MS in this field (my undergraduate is in math). As far as I understand, licensure in Industrial Engineering is a title designation. In other words, there's no specific practice you're allowed to do as a licensed professional industrial engineer that you wouldn't be allowed to do without this license. It simply gives you the right to professionally represent yourself as a licensed PE.

I support the licensing bodies rights to restrict narrowly defined terminology that clearly references licensure, but my personal feeling is that the scope should be very limited. In other words, I believe I should be allowed to casually refer to myself as an engineer, I think it's fine to say you're a data engineer rather than a data scientist depending on what you do. I even think it's ok to refer to myself as an industrial engineer (though I wouldn't personally especially want to).

The ambiguity creeps in if I refer to myself as a "Professional Industrial Engineer". I personally wouldn't do that, it would feel a little fraudulent, but that's a feeling, not something I'd enforce through law or even social pressure. To stay on the right side of scope, I think I'd be ok with someone doing that as long as they didn't throw in "licensed".

As for "engineering" as a general term, I think it's truly absurd that PE bodies would think they have a general right to prevent others from using this descriptive term in job or work titles, it's as general as "scientist".

The law is right because its the law?

(wow, apparently I can't even ask...)

This seems like an odd point to make, since Marohn did pass all the necessary exams and had been previously licensed. Are you saying that, in addition to not practicing civil engineering professionally, that he has to scrub the entire internet of his title the moment his license expires?

That seems like a strawman. The complaint is that he described himself as a professional engineer while his license had expired. As in, during that period, he wasn't a licensed engineer, and therefore shouldn't have called himself one.

> Now, for the second time, a professional engineer has filed a complaint with the state licensing board alleging that the writing, speaking, and advocacy for reform of Charles Marohn—the founder and president of Strong Towns—constitutes a violation of Minnesota law.

The complaint is that, in his advocacy, he described himself as a professional engineer, which he obviously is. The idea that one needs to stay in the good graces of the state in order to reference one's experience in their field as part of their political advocacy cannot possibly withstand genuine first amendment scrutiny, can it?

> The idea that one needs to stay in the good graces of the state in order to reference one's experience in their field as part of their political advocacy cannot possibly withstand genuine first amendment scrutiny, can it?

Being licensed isn't to be within the good graces of the state, it's to prove the licensee has the requite knowledge and experience to design and construct things which, when fail, people die. This is something we want in society.

But he obviously had that knowledge and experience. It didn't go away when he allowed his license to lapse.

> Being licensed isn't to be within the good graces of the state, it's to prove the licensee has the requite knowledge and experience to design and construct things which, when fail, people die. This is something we want in society.

First, I don't agree that licensure accomplishes this.

But second, it sounds like you agree with the plaintiff here. Nobody is asserting that he had a legal right to perform civil engineering after his license lapsed. What he's arguing is that he had a right to reference his experience in civil engineering as part of his political advocacy.

According to the official site, he is a professional engineer [civil] right now.

https://www.mn.gov/aelslagid/roster.html

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