Engineer licensing on the drawing table: a white paper is due out to study impact on general licensing for engineers.

The Alaska State Board of Architects, Engineers and Land Surveyors has slipped a tentative toe into the world of general licensure recently, and has decided to investigate further.

After a panel discussion at a November meeting of the Alaska Professional Design Council and a AELS meeting the same month, Bob Gilfilian, a board member representing civil engineers and a licensed engineer with MWH, has come away with an assignment. He has agreed to research and write a white paper on how general licensure would affect Alaska and its engineering professionals.

JOIN THE CROWD

A majority of the states across the nation have already instituted a general license for engineers, according to Gilfilian. Alaska, however, currently recognizes only specific fields. For example, Alaska recognizes the engineering disciplines of civil, mechanical, electrical, petroleum, chemical and mining, but doesn't license other disciplines, such as structural, transportation or environmental engineers.

"To become registered in Alaska, they'll take the test closest to their discipline," said Ginger Morton, executive administrator for the state's AELS board. "For instance, structural engineers are most likely to become registered as civil engineers."

Morton said there are currently two ways to become a licensed professional engineer in Alaska. The first is comity (reciprocity). If an engineer is licensed in another state, Alaska can recognize that registration and register the engineer here. The other method involves an eight-hour examination, administered by the state, but created and scored by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying.

One of the most critical elements to an engineer's professional registration, Gilfilian added, is the code of ethics. According to the National Society of Professional Engineers' code of ethics, engineers, "in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall:

1. Hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public.

2. Perform services only in areas of their competence.

3. Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.

4. Act for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.

5. Avoid deceptive acts.

6. Conduct themselves honorably, responsibly, ethically, and lawfully so as to enhance the honor, reputation and usefulness of the profession."

ENFORCING LAWS

When engineering professionals violate licensing laws, the state and its board seek enforcement actions. Those enforcements, said Gilfilian, can be a problem, and so enforcement is one of the primary issues Gilfilian plans to include in his white paper.

Enforcement seems to be a sticky issue with members of the APDC, as well. Many of its members raised their concern during the council's November meeting. According to them, the state has done little to investigate and discipline engineers that violate that code of ethics and the law.

Dale Nelson, a past president of APDC and the incoming chair of APDC's legislative committee, said the biggest drawback to enforcement in Alaska is the state budget.

According to Nelson, speaking during the APDC meeting, board staff, including investigators, are state employees, and their ability to travel-and enforce the law-is severely restricted.

"They fall under the Division of Occupational Licensing," Gilfilian said, "and the division director doesn't feel enforcement is a pressing problem, so funding for investigation has been limited."

Forrest Braun, junior western region vice president for the National Society of Professional Engineers, agreed that enforcement was lacking. "The attorney general told the AELS board that he wasn't interested in enforcing the laws. He also told the board that he's the only one who can do it."

According to the state's AELS Web site, there are currently 52 open cases, 10 of those dating back to 2003, and a couple going back to 2002.

"They hang around for a long time," Nelson said. "After a while, it becomes the mentality of 'why do we bother?'"

Although several at the APDC meeting voiced their wishes for stronger enforcement, Gilfilian said he's talked with other states' board members, and they've told him they don't seem to have much problem with licensed professionals crossing disciplines.

Enforcement, whether needed or not, is only one hurdle the board will have to address. Other issues include how to administer the professional exams; how a general license for engineers would affect the public; how engineering representatives would be selected for the state board; and, perhaps one of the most critical elements for the board itself, the financial impact such a change would have on board coffers.

SUPPORT IS THERE

Both Braun and Samantha Spindler, president of the Alaska Society of Professional Engineers, say their organizations support a general licensure.

"From the NSPE standpoint," Braun said, "licensing individual disciplines splinters the profession, and an advantage to the general license is that it's easier for engineers in new fields--such as computers and the bio sciences--to become licensed."

Spindler argued that the general licensure issue is separate and apart from enforcement. "It's part of the code of ethics that we practice within our area of expertise. This hasn't and wouldn't change with revisions to the recognized engineering disciplines," she said.

In a letter to the AELS board in July 2005, Shawn Florio, president of the APDC, said: "Our membership uniformly supports the concept of licensing engineers only as professional engineers. We oppose an approach that will further splinter the engineering profession via discipline-specific licensure."

Florio went on to say that the general license would improve mobility for engineers who currently can't be registered in their disciplines. He also pointed out that medical doctors and lawyers successfully administer licensure generically, and use a system of voluntary post-licensure certifications for specific disciplines.

The biggest issue to changing the regulation, according to Gilfilian, is the expense. He said it will be time-consuming and expensive to write legislation and regulations.

"It will take quite a good deal of involvement on behalf of the attorney general's office, and the board has to pay for that time from professional fees," Gilfilian said. "It's a dramatic change to current laws."

This change, however, if it does take place, won't happen soon. Gilfilian's white paper will be presented to the board in 2006, and he expects the board to make a decision about whether to pursue the general license concept or to leave it as is. If they choose to pursue the idea, Gilfilian anticipates a long process of working toward a consensus across the engineering fields even before beginning to rewrite laws.