AE911Truth and the actual # of engineers in America...

[Oystein]

...I interpret this as a list of people who have at one time or another said they agree with Gage

But a number of them may even be mistaken about this; surely, some only thought at the time they agree with Gage, when in fact they did not, because they did not know the full lunacy of his arguments, or they believe themselves in lunacies that not even Gage thinks to be true. That this is so becomes apparent from many of the personal statements.

 

[Animal]

So there are 514 Architects and Engineers. Good.
The other day, I took a close look at those engineers that are listed with an address in Texas, the 2nd-most populous state in the Union, representing a good 8% of the US population. We may presume that Texas has a similar percentage of all engineers the USA.

Here is what I found:

274 engineers, total
- 24 engineers from TX, total (8.8%, close to prediction)
-- 4 of these 24 (17%) are not listed as active licensed engineers with the state of Texas. Possibly their license expired, they retired, moved out of state, or never were active and licensed to begin with. A sign of an ageing, out-of-date petition
--20 of these 24 are not listed as active licensed engineers with the state of Texas
--- 6 of these 20, or 25% of the 24 signing engineers from TX, hail from engineering professions related to building construction:
---- 3 of these 6 are civil engineers
---- 2 of these 6 are structural engineers
---- 1 of these 6 is an architectural engineer
--- the other 14 hail from engineering professions not related to building construction

At the same time, the state of Texas has approximately 12500 civil engineers, 2800 structural ones, and 70 architectural engs - total about 15400. 6 out of 15400, that's 0.04%.
Texas has a total of 29,000 licensed and active engineers, all professions; around 55% of these are relevant for building construction (arch., civil, structural, fire protection, metallurgy).

If Texas is about representative, then I'd estimate the total number of engineers in the USA to be approx. 350,000. Out of these, close to 200,000 would be competent to assess building performance. of these, approx. 69 (25% of 274) would be found on AE911s list.



Somehow, AE911truth tries to get the message across that "thousands" of the professionals best qualified to assess building performance support their mission. The truth is, that less than a hundred, out of hundreds of thousands, thusly qualified engineers signed up.

There are approximately 90,000 licensed architects and 250-300,000 licensed engineers the last time I looked. The larges portion of engineers practice in the Mechanical, Electrical, and Civil areas ( All fields that require an Engineering Seal for submission of drawings.) Structural Engineers are typically a subset of Civil engineers, though some states are beginning to separate out structural as a separate category. I would estimate the number of structural engineers as less than 100k, and only about 25% of those would be qualified to do high rise design. I would estimate the number of architects qualified to design high rises (and by high rises I am talking 30+ stories.....the building code classifies anything over 75 ft as a high rise) to be less than 10% of the licensed architects.

 

[Telltale Tom]

So there are 514 Architects and Engineers. Good.
The other day, I took a close look at those engineers that are listed with an address in Texas, the 2nd-most populous state in the Union, representing a good 8% of the US population. We may presume that Texas has a similar percentage of all engineers the USA.

Here is what I found:

274 engineers, total
- 24 engineers from TX, total (8.8%, close to prediction)
-- 4 of these 24 (17%) are not listed as active licensed engineers with the state of Texas. Possibly their license expired, they retired, moved out of state, or never were active and licensed to begin with. A sign of an ageing, out-of-date petition
--20 of these 24 are not listed as active licensed engineers with the state of Texas
--- 6 of these 20, or 25% of the 24 signing engineers from TX, hail from engineering professions related to building construction:
---- 3 of these 6 are civil engineers
---- 2 of these 6 are structural engineers
---- 1 of these 6 is an architectural engineer
--- the other 14 hail from engineering professions not related to building construction

At the same time, the state of Texas has approximately 12500 civil engineers, 2800 structural ones, and 70 architectural engs - total about 15400. 6 out of 15400, that's 0.04%.
Texas has a total of 29,000 licensed and active engineers, all professions; around 55% of these are relevant for building construction (arch., civil, structural, fire protection, metallurgy).

If Texas is about representative, then I'd estimate the total number of engineers in the USA to be approx. 350,000. Out of these, close to 200,000 would be competent to assess building performance. of these, approx. 69 (25% of 274) would be found on AE911s list.

Somehow, AE911truth tries to get the message across that "thousands" of the professionals best qualified to assess building performance support their mission. The truth is, that less than a hundred, out of hundreds of thousands, thusly qualified engineers signed up.

Prove it Oystein, name the names. Who are these heroic 24 engineers, the 0.1% or less, who have layed their reputations on the line in support of ae911truth.

And Cicorp don't forget that you were going to find more than three structural PE's from New York. We need our 0.1% there as well.

 

[TruthersLie]

OK, nothing wrong with being specific. I don't see anyone labeled "draftsman" so false accusation there. Let's get an exact count then.

Oh goody, they updated their list... because when I checked when they claimed to have 1100 architectural and engineering professionals there were several major problems including: counting landscape engineers as engineers, having architectural or engineering firm OFFICE MANAGERS as "architectural and engineering professionals" and last but very important, the website couldn't count. IT claimed 1100, but adding up all the members showed there were 994 members... But hey, if you want to believe in this group go ahead.

Here is a break down of how the 1470 are distributed, as they are clearly labeled on the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Petition, as of April 15, 2011. It is an impressive list anyway. I copied the data in to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, to make it easier to count them.
http://www2.ae911truth.org/signpetition.php

240 Architects (Degreed & Licensed – Active & Retired)
84 Architectural Professionals (Degreed Only)
274 Engineers(Degreed & Licensed – Active & Retired)
549 Engineering Professionals (Degreed Only)
323 Non-U.S. Architects and Engineers & Arch. and Eng. Professionals
1470 Total

Oh goody.

Thank you for taking the time to separate the list. So we only have 514 architects and engineers on your list. Oh heck.. I'll even give you some of the 323 non us architects and engineers... but remove the "professionals" you know..the degreed AND licensed ones, the ones who can claim to be an architect or engineer. Lets just say there are 200... that makes it 714. That would be HALF of what you are claiming. Why are you lying about the membership?

Stop claiming there are 1400+ architects and engineers. That is a TRUTHER LIE.

Why do you and AE911twoof do that?
Why did they tout their original intent was "degreed and licensed architects and engineers" only to change it to "degreed and/OR licensed architects and engineers?" Was it too hard to get the original group? Were those number too low?
Why have they since shifted from that to "architectural and engineering professionals?"

They also have a separate list of over 10000 Supporters and Students.
But who cares? They can be anyone, even me.

You can double check the count, search, and analyze the list in Excel:
http://ANETA.org/AE911Truth/AE911Truth20110415.xls

Sorry... I already did... when they were inaccurate about 1100.

Appeal to authority rejected.

But when will this list of over 1400 architectural and engineering professionals manage to publish just one peer reviewed refutation of any thing that NIST did?

Since you are a member, maybe you should check into that. When can we expect to see a peer reviewed refutation of anything said by NIST in any real engineering journal? With 1400+ it should be easy.

(not like the bs you tried to pass off as Kevin Ryan (waterboy)'s attempt to "refute" Ryan Mackey's whitepaper. 11 pages is not a "refutation" of a 250+ page document.)

 

[Scott Sommers]

But a number of them may even be mistaken about this; surely, some only thought at the time they agree with Gage, when in fact they did not, because they did not know the full lunacy of his arguments, or they believe themselves in lunacies that not even Gage thinks to be true. That this is so becomes apparent from many of the personal statements.

quite right. That's another problem. It's striking how old many of signatories are. I've often wondered how many could have signed because they were not clear what was being claimed.

 

[ozeco41]

quite right. That's another problem. It's striking how old many of signatories are. I've often wondered how many could have signed because they were not clear what was being claimed.

Given the mix of professionals I would not be at all surprised if many of them, at the time, thought "Another look at it won't do any harm - it would convince the doubters"

That is sort of the professional easy way out if you don't anticipate the consequences. Remember that it is framed as a petition and petitions usually have a short life span - signatures collected - petition forwarded and it vanishes off the scene. But this one is doomed never to be presented and for ever to list those who signed. So the expectations of those who signed have not been met.

Then years later with your name still on the list the easy way forward is to take the passive track and ignore it because to take the active track and get your name removed could draw embarrassing attention to yourself.

People who take "easy options" such as I have suggested are not always your clearest thinkers in my experience.

 

[ergo]

quite right. That's another problem. It's striking how old many of signatories are. I've often wondered how many could have signed because they were not clear what was being claimed.

How old are some of these people, Scott?

This seems to be a recurring concern of yours, so let's get some numbers on the table.

 

[Athyrio]

But a number of them may even be mistaken about this; surely, some only thought at the time they agree with Gage, when in fact they did not, because they did not know the full lunacy of his arguments, or they believe themselves in lunacies that not even Gage thinks to be true. That this is so becomes apparent from many of the personal statements.

I was scrolling through some of the names on the list and ran across this one - Orison Whipple Hungerford. This is the birth name of the old Bronco TV series actor Ty Hardin. Given his activities after his acting career fizzled, I am not in the least surprised to see his name on the petition. In the 80's, he organized a militia group called the Arizona Patriots that was anti-Semitic and advocated the stockpiling of weapons and ammo causing an FBI investigation that resulted in his group being raided, weapons confiscated, and some members being arrested. Hardin fled briefly to Costa Rica for a time. He was also into the sovereign citizen idiocy.

You may enjoy reading "Ty's Special Message" on his own website, poor grammar and all.

 

[BasqueArch]

quite right. That's another problem. It's striking how old many of signatories are. I've often wondered how many could have signed because they were not clear what was being claimed.

How old are some of these people, Scott?

This seems to be a recurring concern of yours, so let's get some numbers on the table.

Doolittle Raid Flight Engineer Dorian Gray
Recants AE911Truth Signature
Believes Lee Harvey Oswald Did Land On The Moon.
​

 

[Oystein]

Prove it Oystein, name the names. Who are these heroic 24 engineers, the 0.1% or less, who have layed their reputations on the line in support of ae911truth.

And Cicorp don't forget that you were going to find more than three structural PE's from New York. We need our 0.1% there as well.

Lic.No.|prof|Name|lic. issued|status
62510|CIV|KHAMMASH, AHMAD YASIR|1987|active
79499|CIV|SEBESTA, MARK ELLER |1994| active
84707|CIV|KOSMOSKI, PETER JOHN| 1999| active
74357|CSE|WRIGHT, DONALD REGINALD| 1993| active
50732|ELE|WILKERSON, PAUL RONALD| 1982| active
61564|ELE|ABBOUSHI, TARIF AZMI| 1987| active
68722|ELE|Macknight, David Allan| 1990| active
73615|ELE|SNIDER, RICHARD JOSEPH| 1992| active
84826|ENV|Stein, Mitchell Scott| 1999| active
85196|ENV|PHILLIPS, BRUCE ALAN| 1999| active
15373|MEC|FRIAS, ROBERT| 1957| active
49490|MEC|WALKER, CHARLES BURLEIGH, JR.| 1981| active
52814|MEC|SCHOCH, KURT RICHARD| 1983| active
78532|MEC|Solomon, Ahmad G| 1993| active
93176|MEC|HENTSCHEL, ROBERT CARL, Jr.| 2004| active
108086|MEC|Rohach, Timothy Jon| 2011| active
66027|MEC, ARC|ZUNIGA, DAVID MICHAEL| 1989| active
32839|SAN|Hays, A. J., Jr.| 1971| active
54239|STR|Germanio, Lester Jay| 1983| active
80191|STR|Faseler, Steven Louis| 1995| active
57737|ELE|Robert Olan Blanton| 1985| EXPIRED
46148|CIV|METCALF, BILL HENRY| 1979| INACTIVE
44310|STR|Lewelling, John Charles| 1979| INACTIVE
not found|MEC|Robert Anthony Parma| ?| not found

 

[ergo]

--20 of these 24 are not listed as active licensed engineers with the state of Texas

And yet your table shows 20 out of 24 as active.

Am I missing something?

And what is the point you're making again?

 

[Oystein]

And yet your table shows 20 out of 24 as active.

Am I missing something?

And what is the point you're making again?

Oops, copy&paste-error! Thanks for pointing that out!
I first wrote "-- 4 of these 24 (17%) are not listed as active licensed engineers...", then copied that line, changed "4" into "20" deleted the "(17%)", but forgot to delete the "not".

 

[ergo]

So, in other words, 83% of them are licensed and active, and 4 of them are retired. How damning.

 

[Scott Sommers]

How old are some of these people, Scott?

This seems to be a recurring concern of yours, so let's get some numbers on the table.

This is a very reasonable question.

I have no systematic calculations of this, but just a cursory examination of the top names on the right-hand side of the petition found a several members in their 60s and 70s.

Dartmond Cherk
http://www2.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=991937
who is probably well into his 70s, perhaps even 80s.

Daniel B. Barnum
http://www2.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=999974
who might also be his 80s

Fred A. De Santo
http://www2.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=998956
who might be in his 60s or 70s

Charles W. Ekstedt Sr.
http://www2.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=983841
who was 66 when he signed it

Others include
James H. Bell
http://www2.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=979034
J. Michael DeRIENZO
http://www2.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=973371
James Edward Rasmussen
http://www2.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=978141
Jerry Erbach http://www2.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=991910

I suspect that between 10-20% of AE9/11T members were over 60 nwhen they became signatories. This appears to be somewhere near the distribution found in the American population for this age group. Nor do I mean to imply all or even any would be dottering fools.

But you do have wonder someone like Larry Dodge who graduted with his first degree in 1963
http://www2.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=999176
making him at least in his mid-70s and maybe 80s who describes his experience as, "I do my own structural engineering for residential projects, and consult with structural engineers for commercial projects." Why lists his professional experience as, "design, construction documents and administration, urban planning and design," what he thinks he actually knows about an incident like 9/11.

But this really does raise the question that with so many elder names on the 'petition', how do know they're all still alive? Or if Dicky keeps taking his time with this, how will you know if and when any of them die? If Dicky's still doing this iin 5, 10, 20 years, certainly some will have died. Do you think their names are still valid because they once did sign the 'petition'?

Do you know the 'petition' contains the names of people who describe themselves as "landscape architects"
Dale Williams

My job consists of helping to control billboards along landscaped sections of California's freeways and being a liaison between HQ and district offices for planting, rest area, mitigation projects.

Frederick Jon Wepfer
Registered Landscape Architect

I also have 17 years in private practice and have designed schools, performing arts theaters, fire stations. city buildings, and custom houses. I have designed major highway landscape restoration and have written guidelines for major architectural treatment of Interstate 90 infrastructure in Washington State.

John Robert Russell
Professor Emeritus Landscape Architecture

There are more, but I got bored with all this.

There are people on this list who describe their experience as resroring museums, urban planers, interior designs for homes. Is this what Joshua Blackeney and Anthony Hall think is the 'membership' of AE911T?

Honest question here ergo. Do you really think a document like this looks impressive? It has a professor of landscape architecture on it. Is that what you think you're describing when you talk about the large number of signatires of the AE911T 'petition'?

 

[ergo]

I have no systematic calculations of this, but just a cursory examination of the top names on the right-hand side of the petition found a several members in their 60s and 70s.

... I suspect that between 10-20% of AE9/11T members were over 60 nwhen they became signatories. This appears to be somewhere near the distribution found in the American population for this age group. Nor do I mean to imply all or even any would be dottering fools.

Unfortunately your post from earlier tonight contradicts your attempted disclaimer here.

It's striking how old many of signatories are. I've often wondered how many could have signed because they were not clear what was being claimed.

Clearly, you feel that the professional or mental competence of anyone over 60 might be in question. An attitude that is confirmed in your previous post here:

It is an Internet petition. Many of the people who signed it are over 60.

It's an interesting position to take since you yourself will be over 60 in a little over a decade.

I wonder what you think about these people who are all pushing or over 60?

• James Randi, b. 1928 Age: 82
  
• Leslie E. Robertson, b. 1928 Age: 82
  
• Zdenek Bazant, b. 1937 Age: 74
  
• John L. Gross, Received B.Sc. 1969 b. 1949?? Minimum age: 60
  
• William L. Grosshandler Received B.Sc. 1968 b. 1948?? Minimum age: 61
  
• H. S. Lew Received B.Sc. 1960 b. 1940?? Minimum age: 70
  
• Frank Gayle Received B.Sc 1975 b. 1955? Minimum age: 55
  
• Harold E. Nelson, 50 years professional experience. Ret. 1992 Minimum age: 70+
  
• James R. Lawson, 47 years professional experience. Minimum age: 65?
  
• Michael Shermer, b. 1954. Age: 57

Do you know who those folks are, Scott? And are you similarly concerned about the engineers who signed their name to the NIST reports? How do you know they haven't changed their minds? How do you know they were of right mind when they participated in the NIST study? What do you know of each of their involvement in that?

Honest question here ergo. Do you really think a document like this looks impressive? It has a professor of landscape architecture on it. Is that what you think you're describing when you talk about the large number of signatires of the AE911T 'petition'?

My guess is that engineering and architecture are similar to other academic specialties, and that first and second year students are taking a basic core curriculum which gives them some common grounding in their subsequent chosen fields. If you paid attention, you would see that one of those landscape architects is a building designer too. You also don't know their other academic history or what, in some cases, their undergrad degree was in. So, no, this doesn't surprise or bother me. I think the real question is why it should bother you so much.

 

[twinstead]

My guess is that engineering and architecture are similar to other academic specialties, and that first and second year students are taking a basic core curriculum which gives them some common grounding in their subsequent chosen fields. If you paid attention, you would see that one of those landscape architects is a building designer too. You also don't know their other academic history or what, in some cases, their undergrad degree was in. So, no, this doesn't surprise or bother me. I think the real question is why it should bother you so much.

LOL. "I Guess". Nice rationalization. I'm convinced then. TO THE STREETS!

(BTW, just the short list you posted of some of the contributors to the NIST blow any list of your engineers out of the water. Thanks for illustrating the problem we have)

 

[BasqueArch]

.....
I suspect that between 10-20% of AE9/11T members were over 60 nwhen they became signatories. This appears to be somewhere near the distribution found in the American population for this age group. Nor do I mean to imply all or even any would be dottering fools.
,,,,,

Over Age 60 J-Refers Join Flight Engineer Dorian " Lost My Car Keys Again" Gray
Will Mail Scott Sommers Protest Letter
As Soon As Stamps Found
​

 

[Grizzly Bear]

LOL. "I Guess". Nice rationalization. I'm convinced then. TO THE STREETS!

(BTW, just the short list you posted of some of the contributors to the NIST blow any list of your engineers out of the water. Thanks for illustrating the problem we have)

I actually agree slightly with ergo here. There are sub genres of architecture and at least in my case I had a choice between landscape architecture, interior design, and my current studies before I applied for the upper division courses. Here in Florida I'm not sure how that'll work down the road since the schools are starting to adopt a 5 year program that combines bachelor studies with the master's curriculum, rather than the 4 + 2 I'm finishing.

In fact, you can get a masters in architecture without getting the bachelors, but you wind up in the 4 + 3 program (4 years non arch bachelor + 3 year architecture masters).

Note that these are requirements to become licensed and the take the licensing exams.

Moreover I think the real point being missed is the overall numbers of their professional petition signers is quite staggeringly low, not just for "architects and engineers" but also their computer engineers, programmers, and all. This means despite all of the money Gage might have been putting in his marketing strategies the ideas he pushes are quite fringe oriented. Gage is in a position that in any legitimate case would encourage dissent if the findings were as he suggests. So no it's not the types of professionals he has in his petition it's the fact that after a decade he could only find 1400 people who'd buy his campaign.

Now, if saying that these guys account for less than a fraction of 1% of the total professional population isn't sufficient, there's the issue of competence. Still being in college I remember pretty well what is and isn't taught, and their research capabilities as architects is deplorable. Freshmen lower division students are taught the core value of case studies, and conceptual design, alot of which AE's members appear incapable of even meeting standards for. This is forgivable for people just entering the field of study, but inexcusable for people who've practiced for 20 years or more and are past the stage of learning through internships such as IDP, and college

 

[Oystein]

So, in other words, 83% of them are licensed and active, and 4 of them are retired. How damning.

I didn't say or imply that's "damning". I was just being precise. Losing 4 out of 24 over a period of 4 years due to biographical reasons is fairly expected and just highlights the obvious: That the list gets more and more outdated by the day. So to have the numbers properly in perspective (compare number of signatures to number of all available engineers), you apparantly need to take off 10-20% of the signers at this time. If we are talking about the list again in 4 years, maybe well need to subtract 25% or 30%, and so on.
If you put this to the extreme and keep the petition open for a million years, you might end up with a million signatures, but only very few, 0.0x% of the then active engineering crowd, will be still active then.

 

[Animal]

So, in other words, 83% of them are licensed and active, and 4 of them are retired. How damning.

Just because the license is "active" doesn't mean the license holder is not retired. I know plenty of architects who have maintained their licenses until they died, long after they retired.