October 2008 Issue
President’s Notebook
Working Outside Alberta?
BY GORDON WILLIAMS, P.GEOL.
APEGGA President
The world is getting smaller and more Alberta-licensed professional engineers and geoscientists find themselves working abroad. “Abroad” can be as close as Saskatchewan, as far away as Sri Lanka, or anywhere in between. A professional contemplating a foreign assignment has the obligation to become familiar with, and adhere to, the legal and professional requirements in the host jurisdiction.
“Abroad” for many Alberta professionals is the U.S., either as employees of their companies or as consultants. For the past 10 years, APEGGA has been working to persuade our colleagues to the south that our P.Eng. is equivalent to their P.E. The main differences between the licensure processes are described below.
-
Licensure in Canada is granted by self-regulating professional associations like APEGGA that derive legal authority from acts of the appropriate provincial or territorial legislatures. In the U.S., licensing authority is held by politically appointed state boards that are, in effect, government agencies that report to state governors.
-
Through the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board, Canada has uniform knowledge requirements that apply to all accredited engineering programs across the country. Deans of engineering and applied science faculties at Canadian universities are intimately involved in the accreditation process. Although there is accreditation of programs in the U.S., carried out by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, there are no comparable, country-wide knowledge standards and the accreditation board usually does not involve university engineering faculties.
-
Most Canadian university engineering programs contain 10 to 20 per cent more engineering content than similar programs in the U.S.
-
U.S. state licensing boards require all engineering applicants to have taken and passed the Fundamentals of Engineering and the Principles and Practice of Engineering exams — known as the FE and PE exams — of the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying. In addition, some states set their own exams, beyond those of the NCEES. In Canadian jurisdictions there are no comparable “gatekeeper,” subject-matter exams, although virtually all jurisdictions here require applicants to have passed our National Professional Practice Examination. It covers the roles, ethics and obligations professionals must meet before they can become licensed to practice.
-
U.S. states have what amounts to an industrial exemption that, for large corporations, removes the requirement for their employee engineers to become licensed. In effect, therefore, it is primarily engineers in the consulting industry, providing services directly to the public, that are licensed. That works out to about 20 per cent of all practicing engineers. In Canada, exemptions normally apply only to members of the military, some government employees and, in some jurisdictions, university teaching faculty.
Our efforts have focused on state-by-state negotiations with the result that a number of states are now prepared to waive FE and PE exam requirements for Alberta (and, by implication, Canadian) P.Eng.s. who have from zero to eight years (depending on the state) of post-licensure experience. Several other states have expressed interest in talking to us.
Under the Washington Accord, APEGGA accepts without further examinations those U.S. P.E.s who have graduated from a program accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, and who have passed the FE exam. Slowly and deliberately, we are making it easier for Alberta engineers to become licensed in the U.S. when they need to, without having to write exams.
Licensure of geoscientists in the 29 U.S. states that regulate the practice follows a pattern similar to that for engineers. University academic requirements in geoscience are approximately half of what they are in Canada. There is no national standard body of geoscience knowledge that an applicant must have, as there is in Canada, nor is there any form of accreditation of geoscience programs in universities. There are, however, universal “gatekeeper” exams, as is the case with engineering.
Executive Director Neil Windsor, P.Eng., and I recently returned from the Third International Professional Geology Conference in Flagstaff, Ariz., where we met for the first time with the executive committee of the National Association of State Boards of Geology. ASBOG is approximately equivalent to our Canadian Council of Professional Geoscientists. Also for the first time, we met with the executive committee of the American Institute of Professional Geologists, a national U.S. organization that provides a recognized restricted professional title.
In addition to providing oversight to the state boards that licence geoscientists, ASBOG produces and administers the “gatekeeper” Fundamentals of Geology and Practice of Geology exams, required to be taken by applicants to all the state licensing boards.
Normally, the ASBOG exams must be written by an applicant in the state in which he or she is applying for a licence. APEGGA has proposed to ASBOG that, as a convenience to Canadian geoscientists who wish to become licensed by any of their member boards, we be authorized to offer the Fundamentals of Geology exam in Calgary, Edmonton or both cities. This would be similar to the arrangement we have had with the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying for several years for the FE exam.
At the conference, we held informal talks with representatives of the European Federation of Geologists and organizations providing restricted right-to-title for geoscientists in Germany, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom, all of whom expressed an interest in working with APEGGA towards some sort of mutual recognition of professional qualifications. In addition, the European federation representative expanded on a proposal that was first submitted in 2000 to establish a World Federation of Professional Geologists.
While in Arizona, we also held bilateral talks with geology and engineering members of the Arizona State Board, which licenses both engineers and geoscientists, as well as other regulated professions. It appears that, for engineers, we are at the point where an Alberta P.Eng. equals an Arizona P.E., whereas, for geoscientists, there are still hurdles to be cleared before an Arizona P.G. equals an Alberta P.Geol. or P.Geoph.
I would appreciate receiving your comments or suggestions. Please get in touch with me at president@apega.ca.