Engineers Need to Have a Voice

Last week, I attended PENC and ACEC’s E-PAC luncheon where attendees heard from Representative Jim Crawford. Representative Crawford is one of the Appropriations Chairs, a Democrat, and a very highly respected, influential member of the NC House serving Granville and Vance Counties for the last 24 years.

Representative Crawford is one of the few businessmen that serve in the House which is populated mostly by lawyers and retired educators. For this reason, he acknowledged that the legislature is quickly becoming business “unfriendly” and strongly encouraged engineers to recruit candidates among themselves, or at the very least business men or women, to run for office. The challenge is that the legislature does not pay enough to live on and most business men and women can’t afford to leave their jobs to serve in the legislature. Yet Crawford felt it was so important to have stronger business representation that companies should be willing to continue paying one of their own to serve in the legislature. Unfortunately, in this economy, no company can afford to pay a salary to a senior staff member who is not maintaining or bringing in business and contributing to the bottom line. While this practice is fairly common with lawyers, I doubt we’ll see it gain a stronghold in the engineering community.

So, what’s an engineer to do? Here are a few ideas:

• Consider serving on a local or state board or commission. Many engineers do serve on local planning boards and in other capacities at this level. There are also many opportunities for engineers to serve on state boards such as the Environmental Management Commission, Building Code Council, etc., where they can have statewide influence. These activities do take time, but not as much time as it takes to serve in the state legislature – even the typical short session in even numbered years last for 3 months!
• Get to know your state legislator before you need them! Representative Crawford stressed the importance of visiting your Representative while they are at home in their district. Most have offices or are easily accessible at community events and public places such as church. Even if you come to Raleigh for a visit, they are more likely to remember you if they have seen you at “home” first – and, they will be more accommodating and welcoming.
• Become a member of the engineer’s Political Action Committee – E-PAC – which exists to support candidates who support issues important to the engineering profession and engineering businesses in the state. Let’s face it, it takes money to run a successful political campaign. So if we want “friends” in the legislature, we have to be willing to support them with a financial contribution. If every licensed engineer in NC gave only $25 to E-PAC, we could raise over a quarter of a million dollars and become one of the most influential PACS in the state.

Although a Democrat, Representative Crawford acknowledged that the political winds may be shifting and that the Republicans truly feel they can control the Senate in the next election. With Senator Basnight’s illness – Basnight is the head guy in the Senate – Representative Crawford sees “the sharks circling”. Regardless of who gains control, there could be a new Sheriff coming to Senate town sooner rather than later. As for the House, it may be harder for the Republicans to wrestle this from the Democrats but, a lot can happen between now and then.

Two Million Minutes…with no engineers?

The most thought provoking speaker I’ve heard in a long time, Bob Compton – a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist- created a somewhat controversial film – Two Million Minutes – which follows two students each in India, China and the U.S. during their senior years of high school. By comparing how these students prioritize their time (approximately four years or “two million minutes” of high school), the film demonstrates that the typical student in the U.S. spends much less time on his/her education and gives less thought to future career opportunities than his/her peers in India and China. The documentary discusses the economic implications of having U.S. students lose ground in education compared to their counterparts in India and China – our largest future economic competitors.

Naturally, Compton has his critics. Dr. Yong Zhao, a University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education at Michigan State University argues that the global education achievement gap many are fretting over in the U.S. is based on test scores that do not adequately reflect how well-educated a child is. Creativity, diversity, and stimulating experiences in curriculum – arguably the hallmarks of the American education system – are equally important predictors of a nation’s ability to produce intellectual creators, innovators, entrepreneurs and yes, engineers!

Regardless of whether you side with Compton or Zhao (or both!), the important message is that both sides want the same thing – well-educated children that can compete in a global economy. Both of them want kids that can develop new technologies, invent new products and found companies that will produce the quality jobs in emerging growth industries (biomedicine, nanotechnology, biopolymers, alternative energy production) that will be in high demand in the 21st century. Both agree that a strong STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education is essential. Compton, the entrepreneur/venture capitalist/businessman has one perspective – the educator, Dr. Zhao, has another. But both want the same result.

That’s essentially why our Lt. Governor created the Joining Our Business and Schools (JOBS) Study Commission – so that our business and education leaders could come together to advise our schools on what they need to be teaching so that our children can compete for jobs in the industries that we think will be the economic engines for our state in the future. This is a great idea – except for the fact that there are very few opportunities for business and industry representation on the Commission. Of the 20 commission members that are to make up this study/advisory group, only 4 from business will be eligible for appointment. The others will be educators and legislators.

We believe strongly that for a true public/private partnership to emerge from the work of the Commission and meaningful outcomes developed to raise the bar when it comes to adequately educating our kids in the STEM disciplines, there should be a higher concentration of private sector business people that actually work in these professions, like engineers, who are already recruiting, hiring and training college graduates in their own companies represented on the Commission. And, we’re lobbying hard to get a PE officially named so the Commission will have the benefit of the perspective from someone who knows what it will take to create a multidisciplinary engineer that will be demanded in this new global economy. Engineers need this opportunity to contribute their practical, problem solving skills to preparing our students for what will be a very competitive and challenging future. For the sake of our children and their “Two Million Minutes” let’s hope the engineer’s perspective is well represented.

Are Interest Groups and Government Regulation Keeping NC from Recycling Our Most Valuable Resource – Water?

I am not an engineer so please excuse me if I stray into any technical issues of which I am unqualified to address. As a citizen and a “drinker of water” I share the concerns of those who believe that the widespread use of reclaimed water should be carefully evaluated to ensure no harm to the public health. I do not want contaminants in my water any more than the next person. However, I do want and need an adequate amount of water to survive and if the professional engineers that I trust tell me that treated wastewater can be safely reused for non-drinking purposes then I believe it is the responsibility of our state government to apply the best available technologies to develop sustainable solutions for our water resource challenges in NC.

Yesterday, the NC House Environment and Natural Resources Committee debated a bill that would authorize aquifer storage of reclaimed water. Although the bill is being introduced at the request of Onslow County, if would be applied statewide allowing any local government the ability to go through the necessary permitting process to store reclaimed water for beneficial reuse.

The opponents of the bill, primarily environmental groups, spoke up against the bill citing safety concerns and the fear that this reclaimed water could end up coming out of our tap. There were comparisons to the Hercules Project in Wilmington, where apparently something like this did happen, and other apocalyptic predictions with very little basis of fact. PENC’s water resource expert, Don Safrit, PE with McKim and Creed, and Frank Meyers, PE, the Director of ONWASA, spoke in support of the bill. Both have years of experience with water reuse issues. Don has worked for over 13 years with DENR DWQ as the Assistant Chief for the Water Quality Section and is primarily responsible for statewide permitting of wastewater systems. He also authored much of what is the current set of reuse regulations for DWQ, serves as chair of AWWA’s reuse committee, and is active in PENC and ACEC’s Environmental Committee. There is probably no one else in the state that is as knowledgeable of this issue as Don.

But the committee seemed to be more interested in hearing of all the horrifying things that could happen from people that are NOT experts rather than carefully considering the expert opinion of the licensed professional engineer who has worked on these issues for years and – who also, by the way, is bound by the Engineer’s Creed to “put the public welfare above all other considerations” . Yes, there are some engineers that do not practice competently or ethically but, they are a minority and, there’s a very strong and aggressive state licensing board that is there to discipline them and revoke their license if necessary.

It wasn’t so long ago that this state was in a severe drought. Had this legislation been brought up then, my guess is that the legislature would have listened more carefully to the Professional Engineer rather than the “River Keepers Association”.

Thankfully, time ran out and the committee was not able to vote on the bill. But, it will come up again. If you have an opinion on this issue, I would love to hear it. Click here for a copy of the proposed committee substitute for HB 643 and let me know what you think.