Minnesota Board of AELSLAGID

As required by Board rule, elections took place at the May Board meeting to choose new officers for the Executive Committee. The following were elected by acclamation:

• Chair: Meg Parsons, AR
• Vice Chair: Paul Vogel, LS
• Secretary: Dave Blume, PE
• Treasurer: Keith Rapp, PG

Nirmal Jain, PE, will serve as Immediate Past Chair

Congratulations on your election.

Rules Adopted, Effective May 13, 2019

ARE and FE Direct Registration Option Now Available

Rule package R-4547, which allows applicants for the Architect Registration Examination (ARE) and the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) examination to apply directly to their respective national councils to take the examination, was published in the State Register on May 6, 2019. It became effective May 13, 2019.

Direct registration is now available to ARE exam applicants and to FE applicants who meet the education requirements. Please follow the links below to the appropriate profession/exam page for details.

The updated and official version of the Board's rules can found on the Board's "Statutes and Rules" page.

The Executive Committee will meet at 7:30am, prior to the May 16, 2019, Board meeting at 8:00am. All other committees and sections meetings are canceled.

As the Board did not receive 25 or more requests for a hearing on Rule Package R‑04449, the hearing previously scheduled for June 25, 2019, has been canceled. The Board will continue the rule adoption process.

For more on this rule package and the rulemaking process, see the Board's rulemaking page.

The new licensee list in the recent edition of the Board newsletter contained some errors and omissions. An updated list has been published in a revised web edition of the newsletter.

At the recent Regional Summit of the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB), Meg Parsons, Architect and Vice Chair of the Minnesota Board, was elected to the position of Vice Chair for NCARB’s Region 4. Her one-year term begins in July.

“I am very excited,” said Parsons, “to work on key issues related to the health, safety, and welfare of the public by serving on the NCARB Region 4 leadership team.”

Prior to her election, Parsons served on various NCARB committees, most recently the Interior Architecture Work Group. In the coming year she will also serve on the NCARB Diversity Collaborative that was formed at the Regional Summit.

On the Minnesota Board, in addition to her position as Board Vice Chair, Parson is also Chair of the ALACID (Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Certified Interior Design) Section.

The American Institute of Professional Geologists (AIPG) has announced that Board member and Complaint Committee Chair Keith Rapp, PG, is being honored with an AIPG Section Leadership Award at the AIPG Annual Meeting to be held in September.

The AIPG is the professional society for geologists in the United States. The AIPG Section Leadership Award is to recognize one or more of the members who have demonstrated a long-term commitment and been long-term contributors to AIPG at the section level. The work of these section-level leaders is not always known on the nation level. Conferring this award at the national meeting elevates their recognition.

Apply to Serve as a Public or Licensed Member of the Board

Public (non-licensee/unaffiliated with the professions) members serve a vital role in public protection through their service on professional Boards. The AELSLAGID Board has vacancies for two such members.  Apply through the Secretary of State website. The Governor makes the appointments.

Certain Professional (licensed/certified) Member seats are also open to applications for 2019-2023.

The 2019 Regional Future City Competition was held in late January at the Dakota County Technical College. At this yearly competition, eighth-grade students submit a scale-model virtual city and research essay and deliver two separate formal presentations to different engineering teams in addition to interviews from eight special award teams.

One of the special awards for Best Land Surveying Practices is sponsored by the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), of which the Minnesota Board of AELSLAGID is a member. This award recognizes the design that employs the best land surveying practices, taking into consideration the high standards used by surveyors to help protect the public's safety and welfare. Judges for the award this year were Peter Jenkins of MNDOT and the Minnesota Association of County Surveyors (MACS), Steve Jobe of MACS, and Robin T. Mathews of NCEES and MACS. Mathews is also a former Board member.

The winning school for this NCEES award was Minnesota Center for their Future City “Isla Cielo.”

Pictured: The judges prepare (left). Isla Cielo (right). Photos courtesy of the event organizers.

Having received no requests for a hearing on Rule Package R-04547, the hearing previously scheduled for February 15, 2019, has been canceled. The Board will continue the rule adoption process.

For more on this rule package and the rulemaking process, see the Board's rulemaking page.

The Board is considering rule amendments that affect the professional engineering experience and geoscience education and experience requirements and that also remove obsolete language.

See the rulemaking page for full details on the package and how to comment.

Online Renewal Services have closed. Use the PDF paper form to renew. Payment must be by check or money order and must include the current $60 late fee.

NOTE: There is no grace period with license/certificate expiration. If you need to practice/hold out in Minnesota, you need to renew.

Each year, the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), of which the Board is a member, names Engineering Education Award winners. This October, Board Chair Nirmal Jain, PE, and Immediate Past Chair Dennis Martensen, PE, were please to present on behalf of NCEES an award to the Department of Civil, Environment, and Geo-Engineering (CEGE) at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

The students and their university advisors and professional mentors won for their project, a multistage drip irrigation system. The group designed and installed the system for the 500-person community of Filakit Geregera, Ethiopia. Prior to the building of the irrigation system, multiple farm fields went uncultivated due to the inability to supply them with water during the dry season.

Presentation photos are courtesy of Merry Rendahl, Ph.D., Teaching Specialist and Publications Editor for CEGE.

The student design team from the UMN-TC CEGE Department

Left-right: Matt Simcik, UMN-TC Project Advisor; Dennis Martenson, Immediate Past Chair, Board; Joseph Labuz, UMN-TC CEGE Dept. Head; Nirmal Jain, Board Chair; Paul Capel, UMN-TC Project Advisor

Working model of the award-winning irrigation project

More About the Project

The rule changes to MN Rule 1800 contained in Rule Package R-04374 were published in the State Register on August 6 and became effective on August 13, 2018.

The Governor recently made his appointments to the Board of Architecture, Engineering, Land Surveying, Landscape Architecture, Geoscience and Interior Design. Terms are effective July 23, 2018, and expire January 3, 2022, with the exception of the vacated land surveyor seat, which has a term ending January 7, 2019.

REAPPOINTED TO THE BOARD:
Nirmal Jain, PE – Maple Grove

NEW TO THE BOARD:
Daniel Baar, LS – Cambridge

 

NEW TO THE BOARD:
Denise Kazmierczak, PE – Woodbury

NEW TO THE BOARD:
Scott Robinson, LA – St. Paul

Congratulations and welcome.

New examination specifications for the Principles and Practice of Surveying go into effect with the January 2019 administration.

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