Dear Fellow NSPE Members and Professional Practitioners:

I have served for pretty much a year as one of your two regional representatives. I have had the privilege of visiting with several state societies in our Southwest Region during this time. My immediate observation is that everybody - that’s virtually everybody - now recognizes that what our Society has been selling for the past 40 or maybe only 30 years, may not be salable to those younger engineers now taking up “the torch” of leadership. And, virtually everybody observes that some kind of changes must be in store if our National Society of Professional Engineers, and our 53 state and territorial affiliates, are to survive.

I have talked with members until I was “blue-in-the-face” about our lack of communication, about the high cost of attending NSPE functions, about the lack of national publicity about licensed professional engineers, about the lack of corporate leadership evident at local SPE meetings, and about the necessity to build some kind of a speaker - or educational pool of volunteers to deliver adequate short-course studies as required to earn the requisite professional development hours for re-licensensure.

I think I struck some familiar “chords” during my visits, but I want to implore everybody who sees this commentary to please take on the task to do something towards the preservation and enhancement of our national Society.

This week, along with Sr. Regional VP Rick Moore, PE, we both attended the board of directors meeting of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers. I advised Mr. Moore that he was likely to hear some unfettered and unadulterated opinions from some who were unabashed Texicans (meaning, they are totally unaffected by whatever the outcome would be of what they said, since in their minds it was the truth). Texicans, by my experience, are some of the least bashful folk in our Society - and most have very strong opinions.

First of all, they complained that they don’t hear enough about what NSPE is doing for them. That’s my fault, because there are hundreds of NSPE activities to which I’m exposed, but never have a truly adequate opportunity to convey them to the membership. Perhaps a more frequent communiqué via this method, or perhaps others, would be more meaningful to our membership. Each of the RVPs and the RVP-elect have committed to do a better job of communicating with the grassroots members what NSPE is involved in on their behalf.

Sure enough, they hammered the management of TSPE and, by extension, the management of NSPE along the following lines, some of which points have been raised before.

1. 1. There is inadequate liability insurance coverage for volunteers, at the chapter level, and at the state level, and likely at the national level. The chapters want to know if there is some national plan or deal that might be struck by NSPE so that all are covered on an unbrella-type contract. And, if not, why not? We agreed to investigate what might be available nationally, that might be expanded or extrapolated down to the states and the chapters from national.
2. 2. After the annual meeting experience in San Antonio, we caught “old Billy Ned” for asking the local volunteers who agreed to work the national meeting, to pay the full meeting registration fees. In other words, we asked them to work for the society, but charged them just like they were recipients. That doesn’t sell well, and the last-minute attempts to accommodate the workers were determined to be unsatisfactory. We will work on finding accommodations sufficient to reward volunteers who simply signed-up to help with the convention.
3. 3. In addition, along the same line, we caught the same criticism for charging awardees the full registration when they were there simply to be recognized by NSPE for their achievements. That, too, is a valid criticism, and we will see if there is some way to accommodate the awardees in such instances.
4. 4. We were challenged to find some way whereby NSPE and the respective state societies could generate some publicity for its annual meetings, or its local activities with the media. The thinking around this challenge is that nobody knows what NSPE is really doing, and that an annual meeting should generate some positive publicity in which local members could take pride. We will see if there is some way that through the offices of NSPE’s public relations activities we can generate press releases that will tell the populace, particularly that in the area where we are conducting our annual meeting, know that we are there and why.
5. 5. Another comment which had meaning to me was that whereas heretofore engineering managers and firm CEOs support the professional development brought by NSPE service and activities for their employees, few seem to attend and participate in NSPE activities. In my own personal experience, I first started attending Oklahoma Society of Professional Engineers meetings because in my local area, we had luncheon meetings and everybody had to have lunch somewhere, and my management typically took advantage of the local chapter meeting to attend and participate there. As a young employee, it meant something that my management saw me there and witnessed my involvement in professional activities and events. I respectfully submit that despite the changes that have occurred over the past few years on desires and objectives of our newer generation, if their bosses attend, it is likely that they will also attend. We will work on ways to encourage the bosses to attend and participate in NSPE activities.
6. 6. One of the most critical suggestions is that in an era where most states are requiring continuing education for licensure, NSPE and state societies, and even chapters should probably set up teams of our members who are ready to visit chapters and conduct educational sessions which are creditable as worthy as counted “PDHs”, so that the local chapter or state society assists our membership in obtaining their required continuing education hours necessary to renew their licensure. There were suggestions, for example, that Texas with its regional organization set up regional educational teams who could visit far flung chapters and conduct for them programs that were “PDH” qualified. That seems like a reasonable and beneficial activity of the state societies for the chapters.

   Sr. RVP Rick Moore, PE observed that the suggestions from Texas were not unlike those offered by the attendees at the meeting he attended with the Professional Engineers of Colorado, and that we ought to do our best to convey these requests to NSPE as ways to actually provide a worthy service to our members. I agree with his conclusion, and will convey these suggestions to national in hopes of stimulating a focused program to better serve our members.

   We’re all in this program together. We all, I think, are supportive of the principles and objectives laid out by our Society. We all, I think, want the Society to survive and do those things necessary to enhance and promote the careers and benefits of our members. We all, I think, subscribe to the high principles of licensure and of serving the Public. We must convey that collective opinion to the mechanics of the programs offered for our members, and indirectly for the Public at large. It takes the personal commitment of each and every one of us. We all have to work together to make engineering a more respectable profession in the eyes of prospective practitioners, and of the Public at large. We don’t accomplish that by merely being “good guys”. We need to stick our necks out for what we believe in. We need, I believe, to be willing to stand up for what we believe in, and for what our profession stands for. And, we all need to, I believe, be willing to jump into a new area and represent our profession locally. Our Society needs to, I believe, be responsive to our members in conducting its affairs ostensibly for the benefit for our members, and for the Public.

   Please, as a member, give us the requisite feedback so that as your elected leaders and representatives we are conveying the opinions of the local members to the national organization. And, please don’t be bashful when you have a concern, gripe, complaint so that we might better represent the desires of our membership.

   Submitted with due respect,

   
   H. Ken Rigsbee, PE
   (Jr.) SW Region Vice President, NSPE
   Home 512/288-3478
   Cell 512/694-5797
   Email texas66@aol.com

   South West Regional Information