2006 Issue

www.utahengineerscouncil.org 17 UECJOURNAL February 2006 engineering disciplines due its inclusion of chemists, industrial hygienists, and biolo- gists. Although most environmental engi- neers were trained as civil engineers, they were generally ignoredwithinASCEwhich was dominated by transportation and struc- tural engineers. They also comprised only a fraction of the members of related tech- nical organizations such as the American Public Health Association (APHA), American Water Works Association (AWWA), and Water Environment Fed- eration (WEF). Environmental engineers were also segregated from their fellow en- gineers by their close working relations with physicians in the USPHS and State and local health departments, the predecessors of today’s USEPA and its local counter- parts. In themedical community, specialty cer- tification was originated by ophthalmolo- gists in 1911 and, over the next four decades, certification of other medical specialties be- came commonandwell-accepted.Thephysi- cians found that certification provided a mechanism to distinguish those with spe- cialty capabilities from the large body of physicians and to advance the interests of those specialists. USPHS recognized posses- sion of a specialty certificate as an accom- plishment deserving of consideration in promoting and rewarding its physician em- ployees in the late 1940s. In 1952, Harvey E Ludwig, Chief of the Sanitary Engineering Resources Pro- gramof the USPHS and Rolf Eliasson, Pro- fessor of Sanitary Engineering at M.I.T. decided that specialty certification might be a way to address the lack of recogni- tion and to advance the interest for the steadily growing number of environmen- tal engineers. They authored a “Proposal to Establish anAmerican Institute of Sani- tary Engineers.” Alvin EMeyer, Jr., Deputy for Environmental Engineering of the US Air Force, and John E. Kiker, Jr., Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Florida, enthusiastically joined in this ef- fort. This proposal was circulated to more than 600 prominent sanitary engineers throughout the country. Many comments were received, the majority being favor- able. Among the many ideas incorporated by the proponents was a suggestion to change the “Institute” to “Academy” to more closely mirror the nomenclature used by physicians. In 1953, the Ameri- can Academy of Sanitary Engineers was incorporated in Louisiana with the legal assistance of Meyer’s brother-in-law. The organizers —Ludwig, Eliasson, Meyer, and Kiker —were joined by Allen D. Brandt, Chief Industrial Hygiene Engineer of the Bethlehem Steel Company. The original officers were Eliasson, President, Kiker, Vice President, Ludwig, Secretary, and Meyer, Treasurer. On October 21, 1955, the American Sanitary Engineering Intersociety Board was incorporated in Delaware according to Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws developed by the Joint Committee. As or- ganized, the Board had eighteen trustees, three from each of the organizations which were participants in the Joint Committee and three at-large elected by the Board. The Board was the first specialty certifica- tion board in the engineering profession. Its mission was: ■ To improve the practice and elevate the standards and advance the cause of sanitary engineering; ■ To grant to qualified licensed engineers certificates of special knowledge of sanitary engineering; ■ To receive and act upon applications for such certification; ■ To furnish to the public and others a list of engineers possessing specialty certification; and ■ To keep and maintain a register of holders of such certification in a roster known as the American Academy of Sanitary Engineers. These objectives have remained essen- tially unchanged to the present and can be found published in Who’s Who in Environmental Engineering® and other publications of the American Academy of Environmental Engineers today. The original requirements for certifica- tion established by the Board required that applicants must: ■ Be of good moral character ■ Possess a baccalaureate degree in engineering or equivalent ■ Possess a license to practice engineering ■ Possess at least eight years of experi- ence in one or more phases of sanitary engineering following graduation from college. The qualified candidates were re- quired to take a written examination com- posed of two parts. The first part covered the broad field of sanitary engineering in- cluding public health principles. The sec- ond covered knowledge in the field in which the applicant claimed proficiency. Using the definition of sanitary engineer- ing developed by the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Sanitary Engi- neering, the Board identified five areas of specialization — water supply and waste- water disposal, public health engineering, air pollution control, industrial hygiene, and radiation hygiene and hazard control. Applicants were also required to appear before a panel of the Board which would orally test the applicants. The written ex- amination was waived, at the Board’s dis- cretion, for those who had adequate prac- tice experience and had achieved a high standing in sanitary engineering. At the beginning, the application fee was $10, the examination fee $25, and the annual renewal fee was $5. More than 200 applications were filed for certification before the Board held its firstmeetingOctober 18, 1956 inPittsburgh; about 150 were approved for certification. The first person certifiedwas Earnest Boyce; he was also the Board’s first President. Pub- licity from this meeting and increasing awareness of the availability of specialty certification produced a flood of applica- tions fromthe profession. TheAIChE joined as a sponsoring organization in 1957. By the end of the 1950s there weremore than 1000 certified sanitary engineers. ■ SOCIETY FORUM AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERS William C. Anderson, RE., DEE served as a Trustee of the Academy representing ASCE from 1982 to 1984. January 1, 1985 he as- sumed the duties of Executive Director which he fouled until December 31, 2003. Currently, he is the Executive Director of the Council of Engineering and Scientific Spe- cialty Boards. The article was excerpted for publication from Environmental Engi- neer, a publication of the Academy.