The Structural Engineering Profession (Structurals/Civils only please) 9

[csd72]

In response to some questions made in the Architectural/Structural Fee Residential post I felt that this topic needed its own thread. This topic has been covered before in the more social forums but usually they get overrun with the mechanical/electrical types which, in my experience seem to have a much better deal than those of our particular profession.

I read the website of the burj dubai under design and found the following paragraph second down on the page.

"Ultimately, the honour of designing the world's tallest tower was awarded the global leader in creating ultra-tall structures, the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) with Adrian Smith FAIA, RIBA, consulting design Partner. The selected design was subject to an extensive peer review program to confirm the safety and effectiveness of the structural systems."

The reason why I point this out is that the only person mentioned is an architect followed by a description of tasks that would have been carried out by structural engineers. In my brief search I found no mention of the structural engineer who was the person responsible for the design.

If we cannot get recognition for one of the greatest engineering achievements this decade then when are we going to get it? It was an engineering achievement, it was not an architectural achievement. Architecturally impressive, yes, but there are far more ground breaking architectural achievements out there. But somehow it is an architect that gets the only mention.

Is our problem that we are constantly in the shadow of architects? The only parallel I have been able to find is that of nurses to doctors even though I am not happy with the comparison.

I am a strong believer that we only have our peers to blame and that only ourselves to pull us out of this. I disagree with those who say that we just need to educate the public and all will be alright. If you could get a lawyer for $20 and hour would you offer to pay them more because they deserved it? Of course not!

I also strongly disagree with those who say that the knowledge of our profession is not as unique as those of a dentist e.t.c. To those people I say that a dentist only needs to understand teeth, gums, the effects of drugs and the effects of working with the required materials, a structural engineer needs to understand steel, concrete, aluminium, glass, timber, structural analysis, corrosion, and has training in mathematics, materials, physics, chemistry.... We often underestimate the breadth of what we have learned to get to where we are.

As far as comparing our responsibility to that of a surgeon I will quote one of my university lecturers. "a surgeon can only kill one person at once, as a civil engineer you can kill thousands of people!"

I have rambled on enough, but I am interested in hearing any comments regarding fees, the state of the profession, what to do about it and anything else that people want to air about this great but underappreciated profession.

 

[csd72]

Yes that was what I ws trying to get at in some of my previous posts about people having the wrong type of clients. There are other sectors that also pay better for engineers, you can sometimes just find the right niche.

I am not happy with the general situation but there are possibilities out there.

 

[gte447f]

VTEIT,
Don't take offense. I applaud you for what comes across as a 'go getter' attitude and work ethic, but your comments about overhead and your willingness to work for free without being reasonably compensated for providing a valuable or necessary service to your employer seem a little naive. Of course you should be paid for time spent on such tasks as preparing proposals for new work. You do realize that the principals in most firms do less than half of the billable work that you do and get paid 3 times as much, right? I'm not saying this is wrong; if they are doing a good job managing the firm, they are worth it. Either way, they are getting paid for every minute they spend on the company's business (except for after hours smoozing with clients, but even then the fringe benefits can amount to substantial compensation). My point is that billable hours have nothing to do with whether you should get paid or not for working diligently for your employer. You are not a robot that comes to life at the flip of a switch to plug away at a calculator or click away at a computer mouse until someone switches you off and says 'you can go home now'. Firm principals and receptionaists get paid for their nonbillable time, so should you. You are no less human than they are; don't allow yourself to be treated as such.

 

[HeavyCivil]

LION - I would be more disgruntled if the principals here lived in million dollar homes and drove expensive cars. In my area there are a ton of small firms and only a couple ones with offices in many stats, and only one with offices on both coasts. Everyone knows each other, and I can honestly say that none appear to have gotten rich in this business. In your case, as I have come to understand it, I'd be a little peeved.

gte447 - I hear you, and agree on one or two of your points. But - managers (at least the ones here) aren't getting paid over 40 for their non-billable work. I see the timecards my boss fills out and his boss fills out. They put in 55 or 60 hours a week, and no one on salary is getting overtime unless its for billable efforts, which it never is. I'm just happy to get paid straight over 40 for billable work, my last employer mandated overtime and gave zero compensation.

I have had some managers play games: push you to work overtime on a project that has run overbudget unbeknownst to you (no overtime available), by implying you'll be compensated. Work a ton of hours, get it done, only to see 40 hours compensation on the next check. That's one way to treat your employees.

 

[ToadJones]

VTEIT-
I have seen that in the past quite often. Managers lie about dead lines, force you to work free OT on jobs that are sometimes T&M, then the "deadline" shows up and the managers are saying nothing. You ask "isn't such n' such due tomorrow?" only to hear "no, we got an extension". Then rinse and repeat. When you see this type of thing happening, you're being used. I dealt with it fresh out of school and it only took me about six months to figure it out. A little while later I resigned. Upon resigning I was offered 1.5 X's my salary at the time. I asked "where was this money when I was working 60 hrs a week?"
I got a blank stare from the owner and then he got very irritated, probably from being called out for what he was.
Don't be so naive...the owner of that firm lived in a very modest house and had a somewhat modest car, but I know for a fact he had made millions over the years. That's good by him. But, I doesn't mean I should work 20 extra hrs a week with puppet mangers lying about deadlines.

Csd- its very true from my experience....industrial work has higher margins than residential and commercial....most often because architects are not involved and if they are, it is on a very insignificant level.

 

[Lion06]

Regarding the amount of cash in each industry and our typical fees for engineering consulting - there was a really good article in Structure Magazine a while ago that talked about this issue.
Here is a link

http://www.structuremag.org/article.aspx?articleID=708

It talks about how even a 50% increase in Structural Engineering fees is a drop in the bucket of the overall cost of a project. The author is absolutely dead on the money.

 

[mtu1972]

VTEIT -

I wasn't always this jaded, but 37 years in I have seen a lot of BS that companies spew and I no longer drink the kool-aid.

Since 2008 we have had the policy in place that if you are not on active projects we work 32 hour weeks. OK - shared sacrifice.

We charge our marketing/proposal time to a clients marketing account rather than general. My guess is so there is some metric as to how much total effort goes into total project revenue. Probably also helps in determining the billing rates.

What gets me is that because my former employer is one of our customers I have the personal relationship with some of their PM's so that it makes sense to have my name out front. But suppose my boss asks me to write the proposal(s) early in the week and then we have a deadline requiring OT hours - the other engineers on the job will get paid for their OT but I won't because of the non-billable time I spent earlier that week.

That's not fair. It may even be discriminatory.

The proposal work is not billable but it still benefits the company, unlike general.

As to the owners hours and compensation - they put in a lot of time but my guess is they take home way more than I do, both in salary and then with the year-end bonuses.

We do get the overtime, but minimal bonuses and a match on the 1st 3% in the 401K. Better than some places I have worked, but certainly not anything extra-ordinary.

gjc

 

[SteelPE]

This is off topic.

I have to say that I somewhat agree with ToadJones with regards to deadlines. I once worked with in a contractors office doing engineering work. There were two of us there myself and an engineer (PE) who was 42 years older than I was. He couldn't care less about the job deadline. He would always say "the job will be done when it is done and not a second sooner".

I'm actually surprised that people get any compensation for overtime. A few months ago, I worked on an emergency project until midnight. The company billed the client at 10x my pay and I never saw a dime.... in fact, you could argue that I did the job for free because the job didn't come in until I was about to leave for the day.

I also agree with Lion06 with the fact that in the big picture, our fees are a drop in the bucket. Unfortunately, our one of the few things that a client remembers (at least how I see it). If you raise your fee slightly the client usually comes back and says "this isn't what you charged me on a similar project two years ago". It's not like you are a fabricator or mason who can hide behind commodity price increases. Theoretically, all we should need is a slide rule, a calculator, some paper, and a pencil to do our work.

 

[HeavyCivil]

Since the comparison has been made to doctors, lawyers and other learned professions which all require more than a 4-year degree - I'm willing to bet that if engineers are indeed required in the future to complete an MS to sit for the P.E. that supply will go down and demand will go up. I'm all for it (as long as I'm grandfathered in).

What's the consensus on what this would do to our industry?

 

[a2mfk]

VTEIT- I'm not against a MS but don't think it should be required for a PE, though I think we should start another thread on this subject if need be. Which now that I am done with this one, maybe I should have started another thread.

To stay on topic somewhat, I took about 2.5 - 3 years of only engineering classes to get a BS in 1998. I understand most programs have slimmed down to try and get it done in 4 years, which I don't know what was wrong with 5 anyway. I did 5.5 years to get another football season.

OK, compare with other professions, and this is probably not exactly accurate but I am just painting a picture with a broad brush:
Accounting- BS degree, I assume about 2 years of mainly business and accounting classes
Law- 3 years of law school, any undergrad degree
Optometry (lots in my family)- 4 years of optometry school
Pharmacy- 3 years, undergrad usually in a related science if any undegrad
Dentist- 3-4 years of dental school, depends on the program
Med Dr- 2 years of med school, 2 years of clinicals (ie on the job experience); undergrad usually in a related science, but I have heard not absolutely necessary. Then of course you have lots more interning and residency, specialties, etc., all ON THE JOB training


Back to us. We have to work a min of 4 years in most US states under most circumstances to be able to sit for the PE. My attorney friends all did this practically fresh out of law school. So my 2.5 + 4 years of experience= 6.5 years> 3 years of law school. That's the way I see it

I would say with a BS we have as much profession-specific classroom education as an attorney, and not far behind other professions listed above. Our on the job training is on par with a DOCTOR. So maybe I did just make a good argument for a MS degree requirement, but it is the "requirement" part I don't like. I know too many really good engineers with only BS degrees.

I really don't know if the industry will respond to this MS program with automatic higher salaries. In fact, I know they won't. Maybe it will get you a few extra bucks from your boss, but an architect or owner is not going to overnight increase our total fees by 25% because now we all have to have Master's degrees. Is their building any better for it?

And I don't have good answers, other than a slow process of demanding to be treated as professional consultants, experts in our field, not a per square foot commodity.

I always say, god forbid you tear your knee, do you go to the yellow pages and look for the cheapest doctor, or do you ask around for referrals? If you get yourself into legal trouble, is your first question to your attorney "How much?" or is it how many of these cases have you handled?

I think the "big boys" in our industry do this well, and for big projects it is much easier for them to sell themselves as experts with lots of specific experience. When someone needs a cable-stayed bridge, skyscraper, tunnel, stadium, etc. they seek out the expert, the best of the best in our field, and cost is a factor but usually not all that important since the right engineer will save them so much in construction costs it will not matter.

But for us regular joes out here doing mid to low rise, we are usually a commodity unless you can just get yourself established over time with an architect or owner as a trustworthy, performing, economically minded team member. I had some success with this in the past with contractors and architects. We gave them good service (answer those phones and RFIs), good designs, and fair fees, so they kept coming back.

BUT, even then, don't think someone can't just slide in and undercut you!

Sorry if this was a tangent.

 

[HeavyCivil]

a2mfk - to go on your point about larger more complex projects - you're right. The 'big boys' in vertical structural design probably can get better profit margins because of their expertise and because the quality of the project cannot be compromised. Client needs it - there going to pay for it.

Lets look at horizontal structural engineers. I work with a number of them (although in different dept's - we really don't work together, just under the same roof). I see their RFP's all the time. It's mostly qualification based bidding. Yes, cost is a factor. But points are assessed on a number of other criteria which is meant to give credit to the team which will produce the best product and ensure the best route to get there.

While I understand this is a pipe dream in private sector vertical buildings, I wish one single qual-based RFP came across my desk. If this was the norm (never will happen) we wouldn't all be so focused on undercutting each other and would ultimately get less pressure to work at break-even fee's from Arch's and Owners.

Again - pipe dream, but it makes me want to go design bridges so I can take my time and not be under the gun every minute.