If you award PDH credits to engineers, you need to read this

You could be at risk of your PDH certificates being rejected.

Engineers often hold licenses in multiple states, making it crucial that you understand the rules in all 42 states where PDH is mandated for engineers.

Let’s say you host a webinar for 30 engineers employed by an engineering firm in Atlanta. Since Georgia doesn’t require PDH providers to be approved by the state, you’re good to go.

However, there’s a good chance that some of those engineers are also licensed in Florida, which requires engineers to earn PDH credits from Board-approved providers.  Unless you apply for approval with the Florida Board of Professional Engineers, the certificate you issue will be rejected.

What is a PDH?

PDH is an acronym for “professional development hour.” It is the term that most state engineering licensing boards use for continuing education, although a few states use CPD (Continuing Professional Development) credits or CPC (Continuing Professional Competency).

One PDH is nominally equivalent to one hour of instruction.

Note that a PDH is not the same as a CEU (continuing education unit), which is the term used by many universities and colleges.

1 PDH = 0.1 CEU

License Renewal Cycles

Most states have either a one-year or two-year renewal cycle with a requirement of 15 PDH (annually) or 30 PDH (biennially), with a few exceptions:

• New York engineers renew every 3 years and must earn 36 PDH.
• Engineers in Florida, New Jersey, Minnesota, Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware renew biennially and have PDH requirements ranging from 16 PDH to 24 PDH.
• The states with no PDH requirements for engineers are Washington, California, Colorado, Arizona, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

Acceptable Methods for Earning PDH

The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) publishes model rules for engineering continuing education. Although these model rules form the basis for the state engineering boards’ requirements, there is quite a bit of variation between the states. In general, engineers can earn PDH credits using one of the following methods:

• Completion of classroom training, webinars, presentations, and seminars
• Completion of online courses (with a test at the end of the course)
• The teaching of courses, seminars, and webinars
• Publishing papers, books, and technical articles
• Receiving a patent
• Active participation in a technical society or association

Board Approval

Some states don’t have a formal approval process for PDH providers.  They leave it up to the engineer to determine whether a PDH activity meets the Board’s requirements.

Other states require your company to apply and get approved by the state’s engineering licensing board before you can award PDH credits to professional engineers.

Approved Topics

All the state boards place restrictions on the topics that are acceptable for PDH credit. In general, engineering topics and professional ethics topics are accepted by all state boards. In fact, some states require engineers to earn at least 1 PDH of professional ethics credit in each renewal cycle.

The rules vary widely between states when you get outside of engineering topics. For example, some states restrict business skills, personal development, and office management topics.

Approved Formats

Live in-person presentations are accepted for PDH credit by all state engineering licensing boards, provided that the presentation covers an approved topic.

Live webinars are also accepted for PDH credit in all states. However, there are caveats in some states, such as the requirement for a quiz or survey at the end, or the ability for immediate interaction between attendees and the instructor.

Online courses are approved for PDH credit in all states provided there is an acceptable method to assess whether the course learning objectives were met, such as a quiz at the end of the course.

However, some states put limitations on the number of hours that can be earned using asynchronous online courses, while others require online courses to be delivered on a platform that has “timed and monitored” functionality, which prevents the engineer from completing the course in a shorter amount of time than the PDH credits that are awarded.

Unfortunately, determining acceptable topics and formats in the various states is not as straight-forward as simply reading the boards’ laws and rules. The requirements are not always clearly spelled out, requiring communication with the boards for clarification.

Marketing and Sales Presentations

PDH activities must be educational. Sales pitches, equipment demonstrations, and trade show displays are not acceptable for PDH credit.

If your company manufactures pumps, it would be appropriate to give a presentation, for example, that educates engineers on how to size a pump. It’s not appropriate to present the features and benefits of the various pumps in your product line. Nor is it acceptable to do a feature-by-feature comparison of your pumps vs the competition.

References to your company or specific model numbers in your course or presentation should be minimized.

If you wish to tell the audience about your company and its capabilities, that’s OK. But make it short. And do it at the end of the presentation after you have met the minimum time requirements for the PDH credit that will be awarded.

Certificates

To award PDH credit to an engineer, you need to issue a certificate of completion. The minimum information you should include on a certificate of completion is:

• The name of the organization issuing the certificate
• The topic and format of the PDH activity (online course, webinar, etc.)
• The name of the attendee and the instructor
• The number of PDH credits awarded
• The date and time of the event

Additionally, states that have a formal approval process for providers require the state-assigned provider number to be listed on the certificate.

Recordkeeping

The boards conduct random audits of licensees for verification purposes. The requirement to maintain adequate records of PDH completion falls on the engineer. However, some state boards also require continuing education providers to maintain records of certificates. The required amount of time varies by state, but it can be as long as 6 years.

The Bottom Line

It’s ultimately the engineer’s responsibility to select educational activities that are acceptable for PDH credit in the state(s) where he is licensed. Nonetheless, it will reflect poorly on your company if the PDH credit that you award to an engineer gets rejected by his state licensing board. Thus, it’s imperative that you educate yourself on the requirements for awarding PDH credits to engineers.

If you want to chat with an expert to learn more about the states’ rules for awarding PDH credits to engineers, feel free to book a free consultation.

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