By John Wong
Four representatives from the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), Chris Petallides, Salvator Galletta, Tom Szekely, and Valentine Lehr, came to Columbia to discuss the profession of engineering on Wednesday, March 22 in Carleton Lounge of S.W. Mudd.
Tom Szekely, a one-man consulting "team" who is also the president of NSPE, started by discussing the reason for the visiting of campuses of engineering schools. These visits are planned because of the desire of practicing engineers to inform and educate tomorrow's engineers about their working conditions. He held up a thick volume of regulations, and explained that practicing engineers must abide by them. He further explained that to become a licensed professional engineer in New York State, one must be very well acquainted with these regulations, as well as textbook engineering knowledge.
The next speaker was Valentine Lehr, founder of an engineering consulting firm. He is also the president of a professional engineering organization geared towards larger consulting firms. He explained that the difference between Mr. Szekely's work and his own work is magnitude. In managing projects in the fields of civil engineering and hydraulic engineering, Mr. Lehr does not work at one job at a time, but rather tidbits of many ongoing projects. Such projects involve a lot of people, and do not run consecutively. Therefore, a large consulting firm needs a large number of projects to keep all the consultants busy. Among the many projects that Mr. Lehr has worked on, he has done work on the Columbia campus, hotels, hospitals, and hi-rise buildings. Mr. Lehr stresses the importance of the engineer's code of ethics. The ideal attitude of an engineer is that he would always look out for a client's interest at all times, even at the expense of his own interest. Engineers must keep the balance between promotion of ethical principles and financial gains. "It is important to make a profit, but also doing work that leaves clients pleased." said Mr. Lehr. He further says that the task of the engineer has three tasks at hand: getting work, doing the work, and getting paid. Each one of these tasks requires significant effort.
Mr. Lehr also stressed that engineers must foster a sense of creativity and awareness in determining problems and solving them. Among the problems that he studied were life safety in hi- rise buildings and innovative plumbing. The plumbing problem involves studying the Gray water system, or a system where water is recycled and reused. Also water shortages and water distribution has to be taken into consideration. Another project that he undertook was a statistical analysis of hotel room fires. What are the most common reasons for hotel room fires? According to the study, the most common reason is smoking in bed. The second is drying underwear on lampshades.
The third speaker was Chris Petallides, an engineer who has worked many years in the Middle East. The reason he went to this region was because engineering jobs in the U.S. became scarce in the 1970's. Because of the increase in oil production in the Middle East, Arabs had money and needed American expertise to build highways and transportation systems. From 1974 to 1986, Mr. Petallides has helped to design and build a highway system in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He described the situation in the Middle East to be "an engineer's dream". There were no thick volumes of rules and regulations to follow. However, there were general rules to abide by, such as making highways straight. He said that American engineering is highly respected in foreign countries, but not so in the U.S. American engineers were concerned about solving problems, whereas engineers from other countries were more focused instead on finding problems. Mr. Petallides concluded by saying that the NSPE is trying to make engineering a more respectable profession by raising the standards of engineering in the U.S. and educating the public about the important role of engineering in society. Mr. Galletta ended the presentation by discussing the importance of engineers to get involved in public policy. Many social problems may be posed by engineers, which may be overlooked by lawyers and politicians. For example, Mr. Galletta said that engineers know that it is crucial to the world that Africa's problems be solved as soon as possible. Otherwise, there will be mass emigration of Africans to Europe and other countries, creating a population glut in these areas. Therefore, engineers must participate in politics to voice their opinions in these matters. Engineers must also voice their opinions in the corporate level to receive their fair share of financial compensation for their work. The instinct of the engineer is to willingly give answers based on their engineering knowledge. However, in almost every other profession, such as medicine and law, advice does not come cheap. Mr. Galletta suggested that it is time for engineers to receive fair compensation for their advice.
In the question and answer period, some students asked the group about the professional engineer license exam. The candidate for the P.E. title must pass a multiple choice exam based on basic engineering principles. Then, he or she becomes an "intern engineer" fulfills a required apprenticeship as an engineer. The final step involves a second exam.
The panel concluded by saying that it is necessary to build communication between the working professionals and the students to help students in the beginning stages of their careers and to advance the field of engineering by educating future engineers about their responsibilities and the legacy of engineering.