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Corportate TrainingThe Backstory - A PE Imbalance
It was year 1990. I, a freshly minted Master of Science graduate, was offered a job as an Environmental/Process Engineer in a large, multi-billion-dollar Engineering, Procurement and Construction company. After the heady weeks of honeymoon at the new job, I realized that I was just another employee at this behemoth of a company. I wanted to find out what I should I do to get noticed, and more importantly, get ahead.
I made a note of the credentials of my co-workers and superiors and found out that the ones in the techno-supervisory positions, who were engineers (as opposed to scientists or technologists) had the coveted PE designation next to their names. I quickly realized that I need to pursue a PE license to not only establish myself but also chart my path in the company.
As I scoured the roster of PE licensees in my company, I observed that these select folks were more often than not PEs in civil, structural, or mechanical engineering disciplines and less often in electrical. A PE in the chemical engineering discipline was virtually non-existent in my company, even though we had an impressive team of environmental and process engineers who had baccalaureate degrees in chemical engineering.
I broached the subject of this PE imbalance to my peers.
My peers opined that a PE requirement is for the disciplines that produce public-safety-affecting drawings in compliance with the building codes and standards and need to be issued for construction with a PE stamp. Therefore, PEs in disciplines like civil and structural abound.
However, this did not answer my original query: why are there non-existent PEs in chemical engineering in my company and the industry in general? Chemical engineers also produce drawings like the Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams (P&IDs) that form the basis of a process plant's piping design. Shouldn't these drawings require to be approved for use by a chemical engineer with his or her PE?
Digging deeper into this conundrum, I discovered that in the late 1980s and through the early 1990s, as few as 15% of all applicants to the chemical engineering portion of the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) passed the PE licensure examination, whereas ten years earlier to that period, this passing rate was 65% (Ref. 1). Therefore, either chemical engineers were not incentivized by their employers to pursue their PE license, or the same chemical engineers were not motivated to pursue it given the rock-bottom passing rates during that time.
Fortunately, with the timely intervention of the NCEES, the pendulum has swung in the other direction, because as recently as in the year 2020, the passing rate for the overall first-time takers of this exam was 65%, making it at par with the combined average of the passing rates for the sister disciplines (e.g., civil, electrical, mechanical, nuclear, etc.) (Ref. 2).
Now that we have addressed the old conundrum, there is no reason to shy away from the PE Chemical exam (if we discount the fact that garnering a PE license is a difficult and time-consuming process).
A PE aspirant needs to pass the first hurdle of clearing the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE), become an Engineer-in-Training (EIT), and apprentice under a licensed PE for at least four years before he or she qualifies to take the PE examination. This rigorous process to licensure ensures that the person granted a PE will have the highest professional and ethical standards of competence in the engineering profession.
The NCEES, on its website, eloquently states that obtaining an engineering license broadens career opportunities, affords credibility to one's engineering skillset, and assures the protection of the health, safety, and welfare of the public (Ref. 3).
Table of Contents
Why Pursue a PE in Chemical Engineering?
Why Pursue a PE in Chemical Engineering? - The 5 Key Points
So, why should a chemical engineer pursue obtaining a PE?
1. Versatility
The fundamentals of Chemical Engineering (ChE) and its broad and deep coursework have allowed it to play a significant role in the development of a variety of pioneering offshoot degree programs, like Polymer Science and Engineering (1909, University of Akron), Petroleum Engineering (1915, University of Pittsburgh), and the multi-disciplinary energy engineering and environmental engineering in the 1980s.
However, the PE license in chemical engineering has not been split up into the above specializations (barring environmental engineering), so a competent chemical engineer can practice in any of the aforementioned allied programs over his or her multi-decade career.
In an average 30-year career, a chemical engineer can practice in fields as diverse as chemical engineering, environmental engineering, or energy engineering in each third of his or her career span. This can be attributed to the depth and flexibility afforded by the chemical engineering discipline coupled with the armor of competence rendered by the industry-respected PE license.
2. Longevity
The term longevity, in this context, refers to staying gainfully employed in the industry and not facing the threat of a lay-off. A competent chemical engineer can easily transition to and engage in any of the allied yet specialized fields discussed earlier. Thus, by default, he or she stays in the forefront of his or her career, which in turn helps his or her employer have an experienced engineer to fulfill any future needs on newer, state-of-the-art opportunities. The versatility of a PE passively contributes to the longevity of the PE.
3. Stature
Increased longevity in a career is directly proportional to increasing one's stature in the chosen field. This invariably leads to higher levels of authority and responsibility and the eventual promotion. With promotion comes increased compensation. Not surprisingly, the median lifetime earnings of a chemical engineer are upwards of $2.1M, handily besting the sister disciplines, (Ref. 4). With the coveted PE, these earnings can see an increase by as much as 12%, (adapted from Ref. 5).
The standing of an PE is so well known in the industry that newer certifications in specialty fields like commissioning, sustainability, energy auditing, etc. recognize the PE to be a quantitative-and sometimes mandatory-prerequisite for qualifying for certifications.
4. The Great Leveler
The US is the proverbial melting pot of skilled immigrants...counting the illustrious Tesla and Einstein among them. Chemical engineers make a significant fraction of these skilled immigrants. The NCEES provides the valuable service of a credentials evaluation of these skilled immigrants against its standard of education in engineering or surveying. This ensures that they are academically qualified to take the PE licensure examination. Once licensed, these immigrant engineers are immediately held at par with the USA-born and USA-educated engineers, making the PE licensure a great leveling device within the industry. Through this process, the USA benefits from the entrepreneurial talent and ingenuity of chemical engineers from India, Jordan, South Korea, or other foreign countries at no risk. This is truly a solution that benefits everyone, including the immigrant and the host!
5. Interstate Mobility
Once you get the PE in your state of residency, you can practice in another state after you get your PE in the other state, either by comity or reciprocity through the NCEES. I would like to give a special shout-out to the NCEES for supporting the interstate mobility of licensure by providing uniform national exams, up-to-date model laws and rules, and giving the licensees access to all NCEES services in one place through the online MyNCEES account feature (Ref. 3).
Conclusion
The 2022 National Engineers Week is around the corner. Given that only 20% of today's practicing engineers are licensed (Ref. 6), let us make a pledge to pursue the PE license and move the needle in the right direction, specifically in chemical engineering. Lawyers and doctors must pass the board, accountants must be certified, even neighborhood cosmetologists need certification, so, why should we not become licensed in our proud field of chemical engineering?
Please bear in mind that as of the year 2020, there were close to a million (893,961 to be precise) professional engineering licensees (Ref. 2). Don't let yourself be held back from earning your PE and become a member of this elite club?
Go for it!
One last note before you start:
Statistics from the NCEES have clearly established that PE licensure examinees with four and a half years of engineering experience have as much as a 68% probability of success. Pass rates for examinees with fewer than or more than four and a half years of experience are lower. (The pass-rate curve is a typical normal distribution where the peak probability of success is at the four-and-a-half-year mark [adapted from Ref. 2]). Therefore, the optimal time to "go for it" is four and a half years!
References:
1. Preface by Randall N. Robinson, P.E., San Jose, CA, Chemical Engineering Reference Manual, 4th Edition; © 1987 Professional Publications, Inc., Belmont, CA.
2. NCEES 2020 Squared; © 2021 by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying®.
3. Engineering Licensure - NCEES.
4. Brookings Institute's Hamilton Project.
5. Salaries Are Up for Mechanical Engineers - ASME, by John Kosowatz, Senior editor, ASME.org.
6. Top 5 Reasons to be a Professional Engineer; Engineers Without Borders USA; https://www.ewb-usa.org.
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