2. The senior company staff should have taken steps to correct the issues related to the concrete pouring. If they chose not to take the necessary steps they should have understood that they could be liable. The company staff may have chosen to play the odds and their bet was wrong. If they took the necessary steps and the contractor ignored their instructions, then the company may not be liable.

Unfortunately, our profession cannot be reduced to a one size fits all statement though. I am far removed of the world of a small consultant bidding for work or even social responsibilities in natural resources development aka oil and gas.

Are we blurring the lines between social and environmental ethics? I quit my job because I did not want to be involved or trapped in nuclear engineering (and environmental concerns was not an issue 20 years ago) so I did more degrees and still became an oil and gas structural engineer instead. No technology is perfect, but how can we measure our responsibility to society or our community? Today someone could accuse me of the same lack of conscience, I have already suffered, again!

I agree with the sentiment but good ethics as a lifestyle is a myth.

I don’t think the ethics of the young engineer who designed the garage were the real issue. Her experience and confidence in her ability were one issue. The poor supervision by her supervisors was another issue. And the poor ethics of the site superintendent was the third.

Too often we forget that the P.E. at the end of someone’s name really only indicates that person has met the minimum requirements of the state licensing board. It does not guarantee experience, good sense, or the ability to deal with the difficult issues or people that so often arise in our industry.

As an industry, we need to make sure our young engineers, as well as other young people in the industry, are taught the responsibility that comes with living and working in a community. Good ethics is a lifestyle, not an option to be used as we consider it politic.

http://cee.carleton.ca/ECL/

David Perrings

Is the ethics problem whether she had the skills to do the job, and if not, who was responsible for monitoring her work? That would be an ethics problem – if she, as a PE, put the public health and safety at risk, that is an ethics issue. Is her license at risk? Sounds like some additional facts are missing.

Certainly, in Canada I find it strange the engineers lack interest in working on site and the construction teams do not welcome engineers into their ranks. This is due to the ethics line. Construction wants to get on with it like coal miners and engineers want to examine everything carefully like dentists. Big clash of cultures.

Elsewhere engineers find site work is mandatory and they learn to support the team. The ethics issues get raised to the team level.

Structural failure is an issue of objective- poor supervison, underdesign etc which fall under series of logical events leading to the financial or life casatrophies.

The whole failure’s of structure may trace from the cause and effect in black or white before it turn gray when we question who is going to responsible.