I've only had my PE for a year but I decided to use Google Calender to set yearly reminders of when I need to get my butt in gear or renew a license and a spreadsheet to track all the hours I put in. I believe this will cover all the bases and be reasonably efficient.

Professional and Structural Engineer (ME, NH)
American Concrete Industries
www.americanconcrete.com

I use a spreadsheet for about 24 states. Works fine for me.

I have a front worksheet that tabulates each state number, initial license date, next renewal date, pdh's to date, pdh's still required, carryover hours etc.

The second worksheet is a running record of all my continuing education activities, the speaker, sponsor, date, location, hours gained.
Along this dateline I keep track of each states end-of-period renewal and carryover for the next year.

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Sounds like a nice spreadsheet JAE, better than mine for sure.

Feel free to say "no", but are you willing to share this sheet?

Professional and Structural Engineer (ME, NH)
American Concrete Industries
www.americanconcrete.com

Here is a copy of a blank one. Some of the cells on the first sheet need to have their forumlae manually updated each time there is a renewal.

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• http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=2b2292f3-fc4b-414d-9ee5-f2

Very nice JAE, I like what you've done.

Also, I'd like to meet this Dr. I.M. Expert, P.E. He sounds like a smart guy.

Professional and Structural Engineer (ME, NH)
American Concrete Industries
www.americanconcrete.com

Thanks for the tips, everyone!

steuey,

Wouldn't you be better off using whatever document you must submit to your professional organization? I am a technologist certified by OACETT, and we have just made Continuing Professional Development (CPD) mandatory. I need to keep track of this stuff too, although only in the Canadian province of Ontario.

--
JHG

Personally what would be nice is a software program that puts your CEUs in a database, and then give you a dashboard of renewal metrics, and then prints out a copy of the state-required summary of education. Coders: ready, set, start!

We would pay $$ for this service, just saying, if it's out there, make yourself known before we develop it in house.

OK has decided that you don't need to turn in the records when you renew (every 2 years) just keep track in case they ask.
They used to have an online system that I entered stuff into as it happened.
Does sound like a business opportunity.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube

EdStainless,

I have just been to a seminar on Continuing/Compulsory Professional Development. OACETT is working on a database to track CPD activity. Nobody knows how well this will work. The general plan is to ask us what we have done, and take our word for it. There will be random audits, in which we will be required to submit proof that we did stuff. This would be course transcripts, summaries of stuff we studied on our own at home, articles published, endorsements for volunteering and mentoring, etc.

You can keep a list on your computer somewhere, but at some point, you need to recover pieces of paper, and separate computer files that may or may not be in a convenient, standard format.

--
JHG

Steuey,

Be ready for the state auditors to make mistakes. My first period of licensure in Wisconsin resulted in an auditor asking for documentation of all of the pdh credits I had earned. I went through the painful process of filling out all of the paperwork, finding and making pdf files of all of my pdh credit sheets, and submitting them only to discover that I was exempt from earning continuing education credits during the initial licensing period. Dooh! When the auditor realized this he apologized for the error. I had to earn them anyway because I was licensed in other states that required them, but it would have been nice to be able to just skip the auditing process altogether had I realized that I was in fact exempt in Wisconsin for that period of time.

Maui

JAE,
24 states and none of them require Ethics hours? Getting and tracking the New Mexico Ethics requirement caused me to re-do my tracking database. What a pain.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

zdas04 - I keep the ethics record a bit separate from my spreadsheet but more states are starting to require them so I may have to adjust it. You are correct - pain.

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What a pain. I'm only licensed in two states (soon to be three) and I just keep the proof in an envelope which sits in my desk drawer. If I get audited, I can go through and get what I need. I suppose that may not work if I was licensed in so many states. Unless I have a true need to be licensed in another state, I won't do it. I do have the NCEES registration so it's not hard to apply for reciprocity in case I need to. Of course, I would probably miss out on any project that was starting sooner than two months from contact, which most of them are considering all projects seem to be two days late by the time we get proposal requests. But I digress.