U.S. and Canadian consultants meet

Southern drawls and other U.S. accents added a fresh note to the Association of Consulting Engineers of Canada (ACEC) annual meeting in Niagara Falls, Ontario in May. Its counterpart, the American Consulting Engineers Council, held its annual meeting at the same time in nearby Buffalo, New York, and there were several joint business sessions, golf tournaments and social receptions.

On the Canadian side of the border, ACEC hosted a joint session on the last day exploring the licensing differences between the two countries, with presentations by Dan Levert of the Canadian Council of Professional Engineers and Skip Lewis of NCEES, the U.S. national licensing body. It became evident that it is a lot easier for U.S. engineers to come over to Canada to work than vice versa because of the requirement by most U.S. states that licence-holders pass a 16-hour technical examination.

Some highlights from ACEC Canada’s annual meeting:

— The association continues to struggle over the question of whether it should endorse the proposed Canadian Construction Association standard design-build contract. Board member Andrew Steeves, P.Eng. compared ACEC’s efforts to deal with the quandary to “a Sisyphean” labour. (See letter “End of owner’s engineer,” page 9 and ACEC Review, page 15).

— Members of the Association des Ingenieurs-Conseils du Quebec (AICQ) have agreed to put $200,000 annually into a promotion campaign.

— The Manitoba Association of Consulting Engineers has held its first awards program (see page 8).

Consulting Engineers of Ontario held its annual meeting following that of ACEC. Outgoing president Mark Mitchell, P.Eng. of Keen Engineering reminded firms that though the economy is booming in the province, this was not the time to forego good business practices like marketing, which will help firms to fare better when the next down cycle comes around.

Dale Craig, P.Eng. is heading up an Ottawa chapter of CEO.