March 6, 2005
Lorraine Manz
President
North Dakota Geological Society
P.O. Box 82
Bismarck, ND
Dear Ms. Manz,
RE: Professional Registration of Geologists is Costly and a Waste of Your Time and Money
I would like for the fine geologists of North Dakota to consider not supporting any form of registration of geologists. The reasons I have are based on my personal experience and on my opinions after reading transcripts from hundreds of registration boards'' meetings, from state boards in California to Washington to organizational pep-rallies in New York State (NY has no licensing). At the very least I would like to introduce my comments and experience in a Letter to the Editor of your organization. Others may share my opinion or may wish to add to or to debate the matter.
These boards are supposed to protect the public, so they say; it all sounds so nice. Protection requires penalties. The penalties, when there are any, are for not placing a rubber stamp imprint (professional seal) on all documents. Or for running an ad for geologic services (as a professional) after the geologists dues were late in payment. One geologist wouldn''t stamp a document claiming his opinion could be challenged; he was held accountable saying that even without the stamp/his official seal, that his opinion was certified. It was his opinion that if he didn''t place his seal on the report it was ok. Guess again.
Recently, in 2004, and I couldn''t believe it, in Texas alone, 6500 geologists paid $200 per year each (that''s $1,300,000 per year, actual dollars may be closer to $1,100,000 according to a critical and friendly colleague) to be qualified as a professional. This money goes/''went'' to pay the salaries of managers and office staff and for facilities for the administration of registration in Austin, Texas. To me, that''s a total waste of money and the money comes from earnings which these geologists would have used to support real professional activities, for instance the dues of local professional societies, such as your own in North Dakota and ours in Houston, Dallas, Midland and anywhere in Texas. That money would have paid for 60 to 100 geologists'' tuition at state and private schools.
Registration is restrictive. Even reciprocal registration (from one state to another state) requires an examination based registration or license (not a grandfathered license) and fees of $300 per year or more for each state and each specialty. For instance in my line of work I must specialize as a geologist, a geophysicist and as well an engineer because the analysis and recommendations crosses-over into these professions. The 21st Century is a century ready for multi-disciplinary professionals, not isolated polarized restrictions on work practices. The fine institution of Penn State recognizes this by awarding a special preference to interdisciplinary studies in the earth sciences and engineering.
The director of the Texas board is bragging that he had a great year! What made it great? He stole $1,300,000 from good hearted geologists; that''s what made it great.
The strongest argument I have heard in favor of registration by applicants is that they may, in the future, need to move to a new career (away from mining and
petroleum) and may need to be registered to pursue it. This is a fear. This is also non-sense because there are very few jobs in the environmental area and all are very low paying jobs for publicly involved geologists. The owners of the environmental services companies do quite well, though.
None of the state registration boards require any form of professional liability insurance or even have it recognized as ''in the public''s best interest''. The fact is most professional geologists don''t know why they would need liability insurance. Well, duh.
The AAPG has a DPA division and there is the AIPG. Both these groups are charged with identifying and confirming the education and experience of its members. Every country I have worked in has its own professional group that confirms our members credentials.
I have been a professional geologist and geophysicist for almost 40 years; I have maintained an independent practice for over 25 years. My work involves public safety and welfare. I have testified in state and federal courts and advised foreign (non-USA) ministries on matters involving best practices of geology, geophysics and damages to individuals and companies from malpractice of earth sciences and earth engineering. In every one of these cases, the individual or company team involved was more than qualified professionally, and was simply ''interpreting'' the geologic data improperly; this, I believe, is the very nature of earth science. It is the reason that two geologists may have quite different opinions. Geology is an experienced based profession. The credentials of an honest geologist can be confirmed in 5 minutes with just one or two phone calls.
Sincerely and respectfully,
Ralph W. Baird
Art,
I read your report on tsunamis and found most to be extremely well presented and informative. However, I think the idea that this disaster could have been prevented is simplistic. Here in this very country we have literally millions of well educated and informed people with access to alarms, email, phones and fog horns...building and living along the active faults in California. Our inability to predict magnitude is just as real in California as it is in the Indian ocean...and another disaster will occur because of our being unprepared for the un-predictable magnitude...and for people''s insistence on doing what they want to do, living where they want to in spite of the dangers.
We have been warning people of overpopulation for 45-50 years...and even with the devastating onslaught of AIDS, people are throwing away free condoms and refusing to limit families in spite of starvation and famine and incurable disease. The message gets to people even in Africa and Asia because the media is so much better now than 50 years ago. However, just like someone living on the San Andreas with a PhD and a Blackberry in their pocket...people chose to ignore the information and live with the danger.
My family evacuated from Hurricane Carla in the ''60''s in Texas...then my mom said...''Gee, it missed us!'' Even though she saw the homes obliterated just 100 miles north of us at Port O''Conner, she chose to ride out the next one at her home on "Bay View" with three small children in the house. Her luck---the wind tore the windows out as the eye went over her home, but the water didn''t rise far enough to drown them all. Duh.
Robbie Gries
Priority Oil & Gas LLC
P. O. Box 27798
Denver, CO USA 80227-0798
Declining Science Education Puts Nation at Risk – How did it happen?
George D. Klein