By Norm Huggins, P.Eng., Chair, Consulting Engineers of
Ontario,
VP, CH2M HILL Canada Limited
Take time to think of the skills and the effort that have gone into the homes we live in, the roads and bridges we travel on for work, pleasure and emergencies. Does anyone ask: "How does that water magically and continuously appear?" Then, "Where does it go after use?" Does the public have any idea of the training, skills and, yes, the legal responsibilities that consulting engineers provide daily? Regrettably, the answer is no.
Historically, consulting engineers have had a role in the planning, design, construction and commissioning of our public environmental infrastructure. Indeed, consulting engineers have been the catalysts in securing society's infrastructure needs now and for the future. Consulting engineers are able to concentrate their particular disciplinary skills and experience to ensure cost-effective designs that, over the life cycle of projects, are remarkably economical.
Experience gained by consulting engineers on diverse types of projects and products, along with the portability of their constantly developing skills, gives added value to clients' in-place staff. Many civic leaders, regrettably, are unaware of the hidden cost of many lost opportunities to their communities when they do not award contracts based on engineering experience, which in turn, is based on total life cycle benefits.
The technical challenges of consulting engineers have never been greater than they are today and for the foreseeable future. Projects to reduce traffic gridlock with its attendant and ever-increasing air pollution, safe drinking water and water resources management, are all linked to society's goals of sustainable growth which challenge consulting engineers daily. The Walkertons, the North Battlefords and the economic recovery from the World Trade Center and Washington, DC, tragedies of September 11, further highlight these challenges.
Emerging problems of consulting engineers are at a critical level. Our profession is confronted with an aging experience base that is not being replenished at a rate that will match the challenges of the future. Ironically, it will be clients and communities that will suffer down the road if the decline of the engineering disciplines continues.
The shortage of new recruits, particularly civil engineering candidates, to consulting engineering, is a subject of continuing debate. The obvious culprit is a competitive climate that is too often based on initial low prices instead of the quality of engineering.
In addition to cut-throat competition and higher pay in other engineering sectors, we face many other misconceptions. The current use of the phrase consultant often conjures up a false image in the public's mind of high cost services which yield few tangible benefits to the public. Consulting engineers, through the classification of their services, are wrongfully cast into groups otherwise referred to as consultants. A widespread misconception of consulting engineering is the root cause of a declining skills resource.
Recent Toronto newspaper headlines on an auditor's report on municipal spending on "consultants' fees" highlighted the public's wrong perceptions of the intrinsic worth of consulting engineering. Regrettably, the misconceptions created by these reports were not based on consulting engineers but rather they were critical of a variety of practitioners in other fields that are far removed from the engineering disciplines.
How do we turn this trend around?
Finally, we should all celebrate the innovation and foresight of those who have built the consulting engineering industry to what it is today and prepared us for a strong industry tomorrow.
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