FLORIDA
ENGINEERING SOCIETY
PROFESSIONAL
POLICY (PP No. 11D)
RIGHTS OF FLORIDA PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS TO PRACTICE
ENGINEERING
1.0 Preamble
1.1 Purpose - Our engineering predecessors gave
us an engineering profession steeped in scientific foundation and mental
discipline and with unlimited opportunity to serve the public. Our generation of engineers has the
responsibility and is dedicated to insure that future generations of engineers
will not be denied the opportunities we enjoy.
The FES accepts the responsibility to promote and protect the individual
and collective rights of Florida engineers to practice within their chosen
engineering practice areas.
1.2 Interprofessional Cooperation - The Florida
Engineering Society (FES) is vitally interested in maintaining proper relations
with other Florida professionals so that Florida engineers may effectively
contribute their engineering services and creative work to safeguard the life,
health and property of Florida citizens.
FES and the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) have
contributed much in developing proper relationships among the professions. FES believes it to be mutually advantageous
for Florida engineers and other Florida professions to remain separate but to
continue to cooperate and work together in joint effort for the public good.
2.0 Engineers’
Engineer’s Legal Right to Practice Engineering in Florida
2.1 A Personal Right - A Florida engineer's right to practice
engineering is a personal right based solely on engineering education,
engineering training and engineering experience as evidenced by Florida
engineering certificate of registration.
A Florida engineer's practice, education, training, experience, qualifications,
technical competence, conduct or responsibilities in connection with their
authority to perform engineering services and creative work within chosen
engineering practice areas as permissible conduct are subject to regulation
solely by the Florida Board of Professional Engineers and the courts. It is the position of the Florida Board of
Professional Engineers that all duly licensed engineers who perform engineering
services and creative work in connection with any engineering practice areas
pursuant to Chapter 471 are practicing engineering that is a legal form of
engineering and not subject to sanction by any other State Board or Agency.
2.2 Authority to Practice - The Florida
Chapter 471 Engineering grants the recognized practice areas of
engineering. Statute ss471.005(6)
(7) provides that duly licensed Florida engineers who possess the
engineering education, the engineering training and the engineering experience
in the application of special knowledge of the mathematical, physical and
engineering sciences may perform engineering services or creative work in
connection with any public or private utilities, structures, buildings,
machines, equipment, processes, work systems, projects and industrial or
consumer products or equipment of a mechanical, electrical, hydraulic,
pneumatic or thermal nature insofar as they involve safeguarding life, health
or property. These engineering services
and creative work include consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning,
and design of engineering works and systems, planning the use of land and water,
engineering surveys, construction reviews, the preparation of engineering
drawings, specifications and other documents and including such other
professional services as may be necessary to the planning, progress and
completion of any engineering service.
Statute ss471.005(6) (7) also provides that engineers
shall be construed to practice engineering within the meaning and intent of
Chapter 471; who practices any branch of engineering; who represents themselves
to be an engineer, or they are registered under Chapter 471; or who holds
themselves as able to perform or does perform any engineering service or
creative work or any other service designated by practitioner which is
recognized as engineering.
2.3 Board Rules - The Chapter 471
Rule 61G15-18.011(2) defines engineering design as follows: "Engineering
Design shall mean the process of devising a system, component, or process to
meet desired needs. It is a
decision-making process (often interactive iterative), in which the basic sciences, mathematics and
engineering sciences are applied to convert resources optimally to meet a
stated objective. Among the fundamental
elements of the design process are the establishment of objectives and
criteria, synthesis, analysis, construction, testing and evaluation. Central to the process are the essential and
complementary roles of synthesis and analysis.
This definition is intended to be interpreted in its broadest sense. In particular, the words "system,
component, or process" and "convert resources optimally" operate
to indicate that sociological, economic, aesthetic, legal, ethical, etc.,
considerations can be included."
Rule 61G15-30 provides common
responsibilities for all engineers and Rules 61G15-31, 32, 33, and 34 provide
engineers' responsibility rules concerning the design of structures, fire
protection systems, electrical systems and mechanical systems. Rule 61G15-35 provides engineers’
responsibility rules concerning inspection of threshold buildings.
These rules explain engineer's responsibilities when performing engineering
services and creative work consistent with Florida engineer's authority to
practice engineering granted by Chapter 471.
2.4 Overlap - The FES recognizes
that there may be an overlapping of some Florida engineering practice area
services and the practice area services of other Florida professionals
including, but not limited to, surveyors, geologists, landscape architects and
architects. That is, the same services
may in one instance constitute engineering services and in another instance
constitute the services of other Florida professionals. Addressing this overlap, it is the FES
position that when a duly licensed Florida engineer performs services which are
within the reach of the Florida Chapter 471 statute and also within the reach
of a statute licensing other professions, the engineer performed such services
under the Florida Chapter 471 statute under which the engineer is registered,
and the engineer is not affected by the fact that the engineer's engineering
services may also fall within the reach of other Florida professional licensing
statutes.
2.5 Building Design Engineering Services - FES recognizes
that the legal rights of engineers and architects to design buildings sometimes
coincide. The State licensing laws for
engineers and architects to design buildings are predicated upon and justified
only as a means to protect the public health, safety and welfare. They should not be used as a means to
enhance the standing of one design profession over another because the two
professions are each authorized by their respective statutes to perform
building design services, with each profession subject to regulation solely by
its Board and the courts.
2.6 Dedication - The FES is
dedicated to fulfilling its responsibility to defend engineers' legal rights to
practice engineering in Florida pursuant to the Florida Chapter 471, its rules,
rulings by appeal courts and engineering practice history.
Approved
by the FES Board of Directors
February
6, 1971
Revised
by the FES Executive Committee
June
23, 1983
Reaffirmed
by the FES Board of Directors
August
2, 1990
Major
Revision by the FES Board of Directors
March
16, 1995
Amended
by the FES Board of Directors
September 21, 1995
Major
Revision by the FES Board of Directors
June
15, 2001