In This Issue

Regulations addressing the new licensing renewal requirement of continuing professional competency (CPC) have been drafted, and the Board intends to have them published this summer in the Maryland Register and on the DLLR website. Once they are published, the public will be invited to participate in a hearing before the Board prior to the regulations becoming final.

The phase-in period for CPC will be from October 1, 2015 to September 30, 2016, wherein licensees will have to report 12 hours of continuing professional competency, or half of the full requirement. Beginning October 1, 2016, licensees will be required to report the full 24 hours. Licensees will be exempt from the requirement for their first renewal.

Continuing professional competency will be measured in units called professional development hours (PDHs), with one PDH defined as 50 minutes of face-to-face or distance learning instruction in health, safety and welfare subjects. The courses or other activities must have prior approval for credit by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the Landscape Architecture Continuing Education System (LACES) or the Board. The PDHs earned must incorporate clear outcome measures (e.g., quizzes, projects, narratives), and a maximum of 12 PDHs earned in excess of the required 24 can be carried forward to the following license renewal term.

As part of the Maryland applications for original licenses, licenses by reciprocity and the prequalification application to take the Landscape Architect Registration Examination (L.A.R.E.), applicants are required to provide evidence of landscape architect experience by submitting a Report of Professional Experience (RPE). The RPEs for each employment are required to be endorsed by a licensed landscape architect who is/was (ideally) the immediate supervisor of the applicant's work. However, if an applicant is unable to obtain an endorsement from a licensed landscape architect, there are three other options that are potentially acceptable to the Board:

* A licensed architect

* A professional engineer

* A certified planner

In each case, the endorser must have experience that is acceptable to the Board in the planning and design of land development. Please contact Board Secretary Deborah Heil if you have any questions.

Committees formed by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB), the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB), the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and higher educational institutions have been making strides toward the common goal of speeding up the licensure process for aspiring architects. For several years, NCARB has been vetting each of the major criteria for licensure, and adopting more streamlined, time-saving protocols: The Intern Development Program (IDP) can now be started earlier than before, and now includes credit for experience such as construction work and academic internships. The Architect Registration Examination® (ARE®) can now be taken before the IDP is completed. Work on simplifying the Broadly Experienced Architect (BEA) and Broadly Experienced Foreign Architect (BEFA) programs is ongoing.

In March 2014, the Board hosted University of Maryland representatives David Cronrath, Dean of the School of Architecture, and Brian Kelly, Program Director of the School of Architecture at its regular monthly meeting. Mr. Cronrath proposed a partnership with board members to develop model regulations for NCARB in support of speeding up licensure for students while still enrolled in academic programs. The university's immediate goals are to have students complete the IDP while still in school, and to take parts of the ARE® before graduation. The Board considered the university's goals from the standpoint of Maryland law and regulation, and agreed to designate a subcommittee to work with them.

The Board is currently working on updating a Maryland-specific matrix for students of architecture to refer to while working on satisfying the requirements of licensure. It will address the various paths that can be taken by candidates possessing degrees that are not accredited by NAAB and those without a degree in higher education.

In the continuing effort to facilitate mutual recognition of licensure credits between the neighboring countries of Canada, Mexico and the United States, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) has announced it has begun granting NCARB Certificates to Mexican architects via the Tri-National Mutual Recognition Agreement for International Practice. The agreement, ratified by Member Boards in 2006, is modeled after the Broadly Experienced Foreign Architect (BEFA) program. Applicants must possess a recognized degree in architecture, 10 years of post-licensure practice with 2 years in responsible control (as opposed to the BFEA requirement of 7 years of experience), submission of a dossier, an interview, and completion of Certification through their local colegio and the Consejo Nacional de Registro de Certificacion (CONARC).

NCARB anticipates that only Mexican architects will apply for an NCARB Certificate through the Tri-National Mutual Recognition Agreement, since Canadian architects can take advantage of the recently ratified Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA), which provides a more direct path for them to obtain an NCARB Certificate. To read about the MRA, please see the last issue of By Design.

 

The grandfather period of the 5-year rolling clock on passing all divisions of the ARE® is set to expire on July 1, 2014. If you passed any division of the exam, but haven't passed all divisions by that date, your score(s) will start to be invalidated for the division(s) passed prior to January 1, 2006.

 

NCARB informed the Board of Architects that Maryland candidates who may be affected by the expiration of the grandfather period were contacted personally by them. If you are affected, but did not receive notice and instructions from NCARB, please contact Board Secretary Terry White. If you want to see when your division credits are set to expire, log on to NCARB's My Examination and review your Rolling Clock history.

At the March 2014 meeting of the Board, members voted to approve a change to the Intern Development Program (IDP) reporting requirement that will allow for interns to report on IDP experience earned outside of the six-month reporting rule. Currently, interns lose all credit for experience not reported in reporting periods of no longer than six months, and within two months of completion. If the change is voted on and approved by its Member Boards, NCARB will begin to count IDP credits up to five years beyond the current reporting requirements at a reduced value of 50 percent credit.

NCARB hopes that by adding some flexibility to reporting requirements, interns will be better supported in their path to licensure. If the change receives a favorable vote, it will be implemented beginning January 1, 2015.

As noted in the Spring/Summer 2013 edition of By Design, Governor Martin O'Malley signed enabling legislation to establish a firm permitting requirement for Maryland corporations, partnerships and limited liability companies offering engineering services. Beginning on October 1, 2015, business entities that offer engineering services must hold a permit issued by the Board. Read the law online.

Since the legislation was enacted, the Board has been establishing procedures to process new firm permits. So far, the permit application has been developed and fees have been discussed that will follow suit with the other professional design boards that already have firm permitting set in law and regulation.

A notable provision of the firm permit statute is the requirement of firms to designate a "managing agent" on permit applications and renewals. The law states that a corporation, partnership, or limited liability company shall designate a Maryland professional engineer in good standing to be the managing agent for the entity. The managing agent shall be:

1. In a position to act on behalf of the corporation, partnership, or limited liability company in matters related to the practice of or the offering of the practice of engineering; and
2. An employee, an owner, a director, an officer, a member, or a partner, as applicable, of the entity seeking a permit.

If the business entity's managing agent ceases to be affiliated with the entity, the Board must be notified within 30 days after the change, and a revised application must be submitted with the information for the new managing agent.

The Board will update its website as it progresses on the implementation of the firm permit requirement. If you have any questions, please contact Board Secretary Ruby Courtney.

For several years, the Board for Professional Engineers has been discussing how to implement the use of digital signatures on engineering documents that are submitted to clients and public authorities for permit purposes. This spring, a set of proposed regulations has been formulated, and the Board intends to have them published in the Maryland Register shortly.

The regulations are intended to allow for, but not require, the use of digital signatures by professional engineers. They do so by clarifying the definition the definition of "original signature" in Md. Code Ann., Bus. Occ. And Prof. §14-4A-02(a)(1). If a professional engineer opts to sign and seal documents with digital signature instead of a handwritten one, the digital signature will be acceptable in Maryland as long as it satisfies the following four requirements:

1. It contains identification unique to a licensee using it, such as the licensee's name and license number;
2. It is under the exclusive control of the licensee using it;
3. It cannot be repudiated and is independently verifiable; and
4. It is linked to the document in such a manner that the digital signature is invalidated if any data in the document is modified.

After the proposed regulations are published, there will be a comment period for the public to respond, followed by final action to adopt them at the next open meeting of the Board.

When deciding on which courses to take for continuing competency, do you remember to check the Board's website to ensure you have chosen an approved provider? Recently, Board staff has seen an increase in Maryland professional engineers reporting PDHs (professional development hours) earned from subsidiaries of approved providers, and those entities are not necessarily recognized by the Board, since they did not go through the application approval process like their parent organizations. Licensees who obtain PDHs from subsidiaries do so at their own risk, and must submit supporting documentation to the Board, which may or may not be acceptable for license renewal.

The full list of approved providers can be found online. ABET or regionally accredited academic learning institutions, national/local professional engineering societies, ACEC, NCEES and other organizations are pre-approved providers. For-profit companies can apply to the Board and become approved. A licensee may also take a presentation from other organizations, such as manufacturers, technical organizations, their own employer (brown bag lunches), and others and count as acceptable, provided the presentation maintains or enhances professional competency and fosters improvement, advancement, and extension of professional skills and knowledge related to the practice of engineering.

Maryland professional engineers have been reporting on continuing professional competency (CPC) since October 2012, with the phase in of the full requirement on October 1, 2013. Now that almost a year of renewals at the 24 PDH level has passed, licensees are doing exceptionally well with reporting on CPC to the Board. Ninety-seven percent of 796 audits have now been completed successfully.

Please remember to download a copy of the CPC Reporting Form to assist you in recording and categorizing your earned PDH units. If you've earned PDHs from a provider that is not pre-authorized, or you did not receive a certificate or other record of outcome measure upon completion, you can submit a CPC Assessment Form for the Board's consideration.

Now that the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam has fully converted to a computer-based format, licensing boards and NCEES have been monitoring candidates' scheduling rates to measure the success of the transition away from the paper-and-pencil format. How is Maryland doing so far?

NCEES compiled statistics from the first two testing windows of 2014. Numbers were available for the first full testing window of January through February and half of the April-May window. The numbers included those who took the exam, those who were scheduled for the remainder of the second window, and those who were either approved by the Board or waiting for approval by the Board to take the exam. All had registered and paid the fee to NCEES.

Although the Board expected the initial drop in registrations to be severe, that wasn't the case. When comparing the number of 2014 registrants to the same period last year, Maryland experienced a drop to 71%. Research suggested it would be much lower in the beginning of the CBT transition. By way of comparison, our neighboring states experienced the following decreases: Delaware dropped to 29%, Pennsylvania was at 64% and Virginia came in at 59%. Registration rates are expected to increase for all jurisdictions once candidates become fully acclimated to the new system, but the Board is pleased that Maryland candidates were so quick to embrace the change.

Board members and staff attended the NCEES Northeast Zone Interim meeting in early May. The meeting was held at the beautiful Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. The West Virginia Board of Professional Surveyors did an outstanding job both hosting the meeting and putting together an informative agenda. Topics included an update on conversion of the PS and PE exams to computer-based testing. Anticipated conversion dates of 2016 and 2017 were mentioned. All committees and task forces reported in preparation for voting at the annual meeting in August.

  

410-230-6256  

Email the Board of Landscape Architects

 

Christopher Schein, Chair, Landscape Architect,  

Anne Arundel County

Charles Adams, Landscape Architect, Baltimore County

Gareth Diedrick, Consumer Member, Prince George's County

Suzanne Grefsheim, Consumer Member, Montgomery County

David E. Locke, Landscape Architect, Baltimore City

Deborah Heil, Administrative Secretary

 

410-230-6260

Email the Board for Professional Engineers

 

Howard (Skip) Harclerode II, P.E., Chair, Chemical Engineer, Baltimore County

Steven A. Arndt, Ph.D., P.E.,
Vice Chair, Mechanical Engineer, Montgomery County

Pastor Farinas, P.E.,  

Electrical Engineer,  

Montgomery County

David G. Mongan, P.E.,  

Civil Engineer, Carroll County

Sandra J. Murphy, Consumer Member, Baltimore City 

Sallye E. Perrin, P.E.,  

Civil Engineer, Baltimore City

Karl J. Rickert, P.E.,  

Structural Engineer, Baltimore County

Rosalind L. Yee, Consumer Member, Anne Arundel County

Ruby Courtney, Administrative Secretary

410-230-6261

Email the Board of Architects 

 

Diane Cho, Chair, Architect, Baltimore County

Paul R. Edmeades, Architect, Harford County

Gary Ey, Consumer Member, Harford County

William N. Parham Jr., Consumer Member,  

Anne Arundel County

Stephen L. Parker, Architect, Montgomery County

Cynthia Shonaiya, Architect, Baltimore County 

Magda Westerhout, Architect, Baltimore City

Terry White, Administrative Secretary

 

410-230-6259

Email the Board of Certified Interior Designers

 

Carla K. Viar, Acting Chair, Certified Interior Designer, Washington County  

Danielle Bush, Certified Interior Designer, Baltimore County

Robyn Dubick, Certified Interior Designer, Howard County

H. Christine Pirrung, Consumer Member, Anne Arundel County

Barbara Portnoy, Certified Interior Designer,  

Baltimore County

Karen Zopf, Certified Interior Designer, Baltimore County

Vacant, Architect

Janis Daniels, Administrative Secretary

 

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