My path to structural engineering licensure began with a nudge. John, my former supervisor, encouraged me to pursue the SE in Illinois, back before I knew there was anything beyond my PE and before a national structural exam existed. I took his advice with no idea that jurisdictions across the country recognize structural engineers so differently.
That education came later, when I was director of structural engineering at an A/E firm serving clients nationally. Practicing across state lines and in responsible charge meant confronting the full patchwork of licensure models: some jurisdictions license structural engineers separately, some tie it to building type or occupancy, and some do not distinguish at all. That patchwork pulled me into serving the profession.
Licensure advocacy is about protecting public health, safety, and welfare, not keeping people out of the profession, though when you are in the middle of the process it can certainly feel that way. Through the Structural Engineering Licensure Coalition (NCSEA, SEI, and CASE) we are pushing to protect licensure, to define it consistently through model language that states can adopt, and to make the credential travel with the engineer who earned it.
I understand the worry this may raise; where structural and civil licensure are not distinguished, consistency can sound like additional requirements, but the goal is agreement on what the credential means and how to transition, not a mandate that every engineer take additional exams.
We have precedent for this. Into the 1990s we designed under competing model codes and one-off local amendments; today nearly every jurisdiction has adopted a single model building code, carried there by a common understanding of the underlying engineering principles and the need to protect public safety. Licensure rests on the same understanding: we agree on the engineering, but not on who is qualified to do it from one state to the next. That is not a convenience issue—it determines who can respond after a disaster or how quickly a firm can put the right engineer on the right project. Closing that gap needs practicing engineers in the room, engineers like you, volunteering because they care about the profession’s future.
There is a public-facing side to this too. Many owners, developers, and architects still do not know what a structural engineer does. The We SEE campaign has raised awareness, and I am excited for NCSEA’s upcoming initiatives to communicate the value of structural engineering and of a career in it. Awareness is how we attract the next generation; clarity and consistency is how we keep them.
Keeping them means fixing how we license them. Licensure stands on three pillars: education, experience, and examination, and we spend most of our worry on the third. The journey begins with education (though for many of us it began with Legos and erector sets, we just didn’t realize it yet), a degree leads to a job, and experience accumulates. The examination is what hangs overhead, and where the PE Structural exam marathon is your entry requirement, that weight is considerable. For me it was 45 hours of examinations to practice across the country. I imagine a future where the PE Civil/Structural and PE Structural exams build on one another, so examination time drops and the path is shorter than the one I walked.
That weight is most visible in the recent exam transition. Initial pass rates on the computer-based building depth exams felt shockingly low, though comparable to rates when the 16-hour national exam was introduced and took three years to normalize. Pass rates jumped when an hour was added this April, which suggests time was a real factor. We are working through an adjustment period, and if you are caught in it, that may not feel reassuring.
And remember that the exam is not graded on a curve. It tests for the minimum competence needed to protect the public, and determining that threshold honestly is the most consequential thing we do. Advances in technology, new materials, more complex structures, and changing environmental loads have raised the stakes, especially for the significant structures where SE licensure matters most.
I know how heavy the licensure path can feel. My hardest step was the Washington SE3, compounded by my firm balking at the exam and travel costs. I let myself consider walking away, then decided an expense report should not limit my career, my firm’s projects, or my group’s experience. I sat for it in October of 2010 and waited four grueling months to see a 22% pass rate with my name on the right side of it. The fight to get there made it sweeter. When I say this path is hard, I mean it, but the pride at the end makes it all worth it.
I do not think that path should require an engineer to keep proving the same competence in different formats. John nudged me toward my first SE license before I understood what he was handing me, and I have spent my career trying to return the favor. That is the obligation: to make this path clearer for the engineers behind us. Join me, and many others already at it. The structures we design outlast us. So should the profession we hand down. ■
Andrea Reynolds, PE, SE, is the director of structural engineering at SmithGroup. Her work encompasses multiple markets—sports stadia, military installations, research centers—and also spans the globe. Reynolds has extensive experience with extreme loading scenarios, including hurricane, high seismic, tornado and blast. She also sits on the Structural Engineering Exam Committee and serves on the NCSEA Board of Directors.
