These Engineers Stand for Reform and They’re Speaking Out Against Regressive Leadership in Their Profession

Strong Towns Founder and President Charles “Chuck” Marohn has been under attack for two years from the Minnesota Board of AELSLAGID (Architecture, Engineering, Land Surveying, Landscape Architecture, Geoscience and Interior Design), the state board that oversees the licensing of engineers.

You can review all the facts of the case here, but the short version is that Marohn was late in renewing his professional engineering license—a genuine mistake that he attempted to address as soon as it was brought to his attention—and a complaint was filed against him about it. What should have been a simple issue to resolve has turned into the board fining and censuring him…even though he hasn’t actually practiced engineering in a decade.

Censuring Marohn and erroneously challenging his license doesn’t erase the years of engineering experience he acquired in good standing. It doesn’t stop or slow the Strong Towns movement, despite the board’s clear intention to quiet this public interest work. 

This is no longer about one man and a dispute with an administrative oversight board; it’s about the responsibility all engineers have in keeping us safe, advocating for best practices, and managing competing perspectives about safety versus cost. Even when they aren’t signing off on project plans, engineers still play a vital role in guiding project work. 

“Today, I stand outside the profession, but not outside the credentials,” Marohn wrote this week. Other reform-minded engineers have his back, including Lindsey Meek, PE, a professional engineer who, along with dozens of other engineers across the country, submitted a letter to the Minnesota Board of AELSLAGID, asking it to drop the complaint. 

Meek’s letter asks the board to consider how its decision affects people, like her, whose work no longer includes signing off on plans—or “actively working as an engineer,” in the words of the complaint. Meek, who we profiled on The Bottom-Up Revolution podcast last week, explains that even if she allowed her license to expire, she would still be doing the work she’s doing, which relies on a long professional career of exercising judgment and making decisions. 

A licensing dispute doesn’t change someone’s credibility or judgment. The board may try to put a chill on the work of qualified people “standing outside the profession,” but Strong Towns will continue to hold that profession accountable for dangerous design decisions. A license doesn’t change what’s right. 

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July 6, 2022

Minnesota Board of AELSLAGID 

85 E. 7th Place, Suite 160 

St. Paul, MN 55101-2113

Re: The Matter of Charles L. Marohn, Jr.

Board Members,

I am a registered Professional Engineer, MN #45832. I am asking you to dismiss the case against Charles Marohn with no further action. To that end, I would like to share how this case and your decision directly affects me.

I earned my PE license in 2007. I practiced engineering at a small design firm for three years thereafter, actively performing engineering duties which required my PE license and signature on plans and specifications. In 2010, I shifted careers and have since worked as a project manager on the owner’s side for hospital construction projects. I have been employed by four hospitals and owner’s representative health care project management consulting firms since that time, none of which have required a PE license as part of the criteria for employment, nor for the actual work. However, a PE license is often listed as a “preferred qualification” for these jobs because I represent the owner in the selection and procurement and management of architects and engineers who are contracted to complete the design work for the construction projects I manage. I do not sign plans and specifications, directly oversee the engineers who are, or do anything that constitutes working as an engineer. It is, however, important for me and critical to the hospitals I represent that I can guide the development of and interpret the engineering drawings to ensure the plans developed will result in fulfilling the project goals for the hospitals and patients they serve.

I have maintained my PE license continuously through the years because of the respect it earns me in communicating and working with the licensed architects and engineers who are designing the projects for the hospital owners I represent. Earning the PE license is by far one of my proudest accomplishments in my career. Allowing my license to lapse, even though the license is not necessary for the professional consulting work I do, would compromise my professional standing and respect among the engineers who are designing the projects that I am responsible for and accountable to on behalf of the owner.

I share all my career background with you to demonstrate that I, like Charles Marohn, am not a “typical” working engineer. My career path shifted to something more untraditional years ago, yet maintaining my PE license is important because my career may shift again in the future, and for that reason I wish to retain the opportunity to work as a design engineer once again at some point. Moreover, I appreciate and respect the required continuing education requirements necessary to maintain my license, as it enables me to keep up to date on the latest in the civil engineering profession, while maintaining a sense of connectedness to my engineering design peers.

I have been following the board complaint against Charles Marohn closely as I may be personally affected by the outcome. I am interested how or if the board ultimately decides to characterize the definition of “actively working as an engineer.” I have always understood that only drawing and signing engineering plans or specifications, or directly overseeing the work of those who do, constitutes active engineering work. I have not considered myself to be actively working as an engineer since 2010 when I transitioned from working as a design engineer to working as an owner’s project manager. I want to make it clear that if I were to allow my PE license to lapse, I would continue to do the same work as an owner’s representative because the work I do does not constitute actively working as an engineer. 

If the board concludes that Marohn was working as an active engineer in his role as a public policy advocate, this will alter my understanding of what it means to be actively working as an engineer. I am further concerned that my PE license could be compromised by anything that I say or write on public platforms. Any action against Marohn is an attack on a licensee for speaking out, which in my opinion does the opposite of protecting the health and safety of the public. How will my right to speak freely on my opinions about how to protect the health and safety of the public be stifled if action is pursued against Marohn for doing so? I will be made to feel as though I am being silenced, unable to speak freely about matters of public policy. I refuse to be silenced as a Professional Engineer—the communities in which I live and support need more from us.

Through the actions of this case, it seems the board is primarily focused on sanctioning licensees and restricting their rights of free speech, and meanwhile discrediting an engineer who has consistently represented the profession in the highest character through protecting the public through his advocacy work.

I look forward to the board’s dismissal of this case against Charles Marohn, with a finding of fact that Mr. Marohn was not actively working as an engineer during the short period of time his license lapsed.

Respectfully,

Lindsey E. Meek, PE

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