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10.09
It’s Never
Too Late to Become a Professional Engineer: My
Unconventional Path to Licensure
By Dave Cotton, P.E.
My path to licensure was not the
path dictated by most engineers or engineering
societies. When I graduated with an electrical
engineering degree from the University of
Connecticut in 1983, I was preparing for a
career as an officer in the United States Air
Force, so licensure was the farthest thing from
my mind. I enjoyed my eight and a half years of
service in the Air Force, including service in
Desert Storm, but by 1992 I felt it was time to
leave the Air Force. Soon afterward, I entered
the wireless industry as a radio frequency (RF)
engineer.
I enjoyed my 15 years of RF
engineering in the wireless industry, but as the
wireless industry made the change from a
fast-growing industry to one of slower and
steadier growth, rates that many RF engineers
enjoyed in the 1990s were being cut — in some
cases in half. I realized I needed to begin to
differentiate myself from the pack and years of
experience were clearly not enough. In 2000, I
started to investigate licensure. I had met two
engineers from the wireless industry who had
obtained licensure. The first P.E. I encountered
was Mark Taylor, who currently works for
Qualcomm. He was the team lead on a project I
was working on in 1996 in the Denver area to
optimize the new Sprint CDMA network there. The
second P.E. I met was Ron Graiff, a long
established professional engineer who was called
to frequent zoning meetings in the Tri-State
area around New York City. Both men encouraged
me to pursue licensure at the time, when I did
not know many radio frequency engineers who were
licensed. In addition, they, as professionals,
set an example for me to move forward toward
licensure.
I decided late in 2001 to move
forward with obtaining my P.E. license, but I
changed jobs and got sidetracked. I re-initiated
the process in late 2003. I was working in
Wyoming at the time and I investigated several
licensure routes. I was going to take the
Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam and the
Principals and Practice of Engineering (commonly
referred to as the PE) exam at the same time.
However, while researching the licensure rules
for Wyoming, I realized I could get the FE exam
waived if I had over 20 years of experience as
an engineer.
I received the FE waiver in 2004
from the Wyoming licensing board to take the PE
exam without the FE exam, so I started to study
for the exam. I could have taken the exam in
October 2004, but I felt I wasn’t ready, so I
fixed my focus on taking the April 2005 exam. I
dug up old texts, bought some study guides,
which helped me greatly as I didn’t have a study
group or class I could work with in rural
Wyoming. I worked on problems I hadn’t seen
since college and brought in the practical
experience I had gained. I took the exam and
found out I passed in June 2005 — at the age of
43. However, I wasn’t sure what I was going to
do with the license.
Soon after, my wife and I moved
to Utah and I wanted to be licensed in Utah.
However, Utah initially rejected my application
since I had not taken the FE exam. After being a
little upset about this dilemma, I decide to go
ahead and take the FE exam in Utah. Even though
it was February, I still had time to apply and
study for the April 2006 exam. I found the FE
exam a bit more challenging than the PE exam
because it covered subject matter I hadn’t seen
in more than 20 years. I passed the exam and
received my Utah P.E. license in June 2006.
However, I still wasn’t sure what I was going to
do with the license until more than a year
later.
In late fall 2007, I found a job
that required my RF engineering background and a
P.E. license. In my present position as director
of RF compliance for Sitesafe in Arlington,
Virginia, I am able to work from home in
Colorado, providing me with a great deal of
flexibility and responsibility. Because I had
taken both the FE and PE exams, I found I was
eligible for Model Law Engineering status when I
applied for my NCEES record. This greatly
facilitated my ability to get licensed in other
states and even opened the door to licensure in
Canada, which I am pursuing in the province of
Saskatchewan. It also gave me the confidence to
pursue a master’s degree at the University of
Colorado in telecommunications. The master’s
degree also helped me earn continuing education
credits, a requirement for professional
engineers registered in different states.
Was getting licensed worth it?
Absolutely! It might not appear to most
electrical engineers (outside of the power
industry) that getting licensed is worth the
time and effort required, but licensure opens
doors, especially if one wishes to become a
private consultant. One can offer services to
the public as an engineer and can legally use
“Engineer” and its variant in a company name.
Above all that, it reinforces the profession of
engineering.
Dave Cotton,
P.E., is an IEEE member and director of radio
frequency compliance for Sitesafe in Arlington,
Virginia.
Comments may be submitted to
todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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