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Professionalism (originally published in NICET News May, 1972)
By Rear Admiral Walter M. Enger
Commander, Naval Facilities Engineering Command (at time of original publish date)
The engineering technician is an essential element of our professional team. As an element of this team, he has the responsibility, as do our engineers and architects, of meeting the standards of professionalism.
If I were to reduce my goals as the Navy's Chief of Civil Engineers and Commander, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, to one statement, that statement would have to be: To provide the Navy civil engineering support with the highest sense of professionalism.
There are many definitions of professionalism, but they all boil down to one word-responsibility. A professional is an individual who performs his job, no matter what its nature, with a sense of responsibility—responsibility to provide the best product or service to those who benefit from the fruits of his labor. The responsibility to provide the "best possible" requires the highest degree of personal dedication and discipline,-discipline to ensure the effective and productive use of one's time, discipline to stay current with the "state of the art", and dedication to the continual advancement of that art.
The mission of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command is to provide for the planning, design, construction and maintenance of the Navy's multibillion dollar shore establishment. In the broadest sense, our responsibility is to provide the Navy with the "best possible" facilities support. Professionalism is the key element in the successful accomplishment of these tasks.
Registration and certification of professional status within a particular discipline does not insure professional responsibility. However, it does insure that an individual meets qualifications in professional skill and is of the moral character required in the professional pursuit of a given discipline. Knowing that our engineers, architects and engineering technicians are qualified is an important step in achieving our goal of professionalism. It is both my personal desire and the official position of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command that everything possible will be done to encourage registration and certification.
Our engineering technician, through his various work assignments, is an integral part of our professional team. We feel so strongly about this that we display the certificates of our qualifying engineering technicians in the same manner as our registered professional engineers.
Although the Civil Service Commission does not require registration or certification of professional status for placement or advancement, it is axiomatic that the individual who takes the initiative to become qualified is the kind of individual who advances through self-betterment in other ways. Employing officials and members of promotion boards are understandably impressed by the record of such individuals.
I look with a great deal of pride on our ever-growing number of qualified professionals, and upon the professional responsibility with which our engineers and engineering technicians conduct our business. This does not mean we are satisfied, only that we feel a sense of accomplishment in the progress we have made.
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