NSPE, Minnesota Society Oppose Effort to Establish Separate Structural Engineering License

NSPE and the Minnesota Society of Professional Engineers have teamed up to oppose an effort to create separate requirements for the practice of structural engineering. In a joint letter to the Minnesota Structural Engineers Association’s Structural Engineering Licensure Task Force, NSPE and MnSPE expressed concerns about legislation proposed by the task force that would restrict the use of the title “professional structural engineer” to those who have passed the NCEES 16-hour structural engineering exam. NSPE President Kodi Jean Verhalen, P.E., Esq., F.NSPE, and MnSPE President Brian Malm, P.E., stated that such a requirement could have unintended consequences that negatively impact the practice of engineering in Minnesota and interfere with the ability of qualified professional engineers to continue their practice in the state. Creating a separate designation, wrote Verhalen and Malm, “implies that licensure as a professional engineer is not adequate and that those without designation as a ‘Professional Structural Engineer’ are unqualified to practice, neither of which is true.”