Registration for North Dakota
Geoscientists
under a
North Dakota Board of
Registration for Professional
Engineers, Land Surveyors and
Geologists.
Dave Bickel
Who started this?
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David Bickel
Dennis James
Keith Johnson
Milton Lindvig
Gary Arman
Cliff Keller
North Dakota State Board of Registration for
Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors
Why Registration?
• To protect life, property, health, safety, public welfare, and the
environment through the regulation of the practice of geology.
• To define the practice of geology as a profession and to establish
minimum professional standards for ethical conduct, professional
responsibility, education, and experience.
• To prevent abuses of the practice of geology by untrained or
unprincipled persons.
• The intent of this chapter is to ensure that only those persons who
are registered and licensed pursuant to this chapter, unless they are
exempted from licensing, shall publicly practice, offer, or attempt to
publicly practice geology or any specialty thereof, claim any
specialty in geology as a professional, business, or commercial
identification, title, name, representation, or claim, or otherwise hold
themselves out to the public as being qualified to practice geology or
any of its specialties. Only those persons licensed pursuant to this
chapter may use the term "licensed professional geologist."
• (Alabama Acts 1995, No. 95-399, p. 820, §2.)
More on need
• Registration provides assurance of record that an individual has the
minimum qualifications to function independent of technical
guidance as a competent professional so that a certain level of
quality can be expected in their work.
• The employer of geologic services must now rely on references,
recommendations and similar personnel information for selecting a
professional. Some entities lack the resources, contacts or technical
background to effectively screen consultants or subcontractors.
• The target audience for a professional’s work seldom has
meaningful assurance of an individual’s qualifications to provide
geologic information in the absence of registration
• Legislative and regulatory actions taken to protect public welfare or
the environment often fail to identify professionals with the skills
needed to effectively address the targeted concerns.
• The geologic community in North Dakota needs an organization to
watch its interests in such matters and provide a voice for these
interests.
Registration – quick summary
• 29 states have Geologist registration laws
• 25 use the national standardized examination of
Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG).
• 12 are combined or have agreements with engineer
boards. Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and New Hampshire
have geologists and engineers combined into one
statute. The remaining 9 states have geologists and
engineers combined into umbrella boards of professional
registration.
• 5 other states only have legal definitions of geologists or
use nationally recognized certifications to regulate
geologic practice.
The Plan for North Dakota
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High degree of compatibility between geological registration laws in the United States and the
existing rules and regulations governing the registration of Professional Engineers and Land
Surveyors in North Dakota.
Graduation with a baccalaureate or higher degree from a geosciences curriculum with a minimum
of 30 semester or 45 quarter hours of credit in geology, mineralogy, geophysics, geochemistry,
hydrology, environmental geology, engineering geology or close equivalents fully approved by a
nationally recognized higher education accrediting association. (after PA Ch. 37.1, 37.36(1)(i))
Registration by examination: Written examination prepared and maintained by the National
Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG)
Registration by Grandfather provision: An applicant who has completed the experience
requirements of registration as a professional geoscientist and who holds a baccalaureate degree,
not necessarily with a geosciences curriculum, from an institution of higher learning fully approved
by a nationally recognized accrediting association by (date, effective date of amendment), may be
granted registration until (date, 1 year from effective date) without examination.
A minimum of four years experience prior to writing the examination. Up to a maximum of two
years of postgraduate education in a geosciences curriculum may count as work experience with
a Masters degree being equivalent to one year and a Doctoral degree equivalent to two years of
acceptable experience.
Applicants not meeting the educational requirements must have a minimum of 12 years of
experience in professional geological work prior to writing the examination for Professional
Geoscientist. Up to 6 years of experience for successfully completed courses in a geosciences
curriculum and nationally recognized in-service training in geosciences.
Many details will need to be addressed. Renewal periods and requirements, continuing
education, and exempt specialties or occupation groups. States address many of the details of
registration and board operations in different ways. For example, some states exempt
academicians or certain industries, such as petroleum, others exclude government employees,
and one state, Alabama, exempts no one from registration for the professional practice of geology.
Association of State
Boards of Geology
The Most Important Registration Task In
North Dakota (last month’s discussion)
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Engineers Board must communicate the Geologist registration concept to its
constituents North Dakota Society of Professional Engineers, North Dakota Society of
Professional Land Surveyors, North Dakota Consulting Engineers Council.
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The geologic community must identify every geoscientist in North Dakota, and other
individuals who feel they may be impacted by a registration requirement and
communicate the concept to them, and address any unforeseen impacts that may
occur to individuals .
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This objective parallels the North Dakota Geological Society’s goal of inventorying the
communicating with the geoscientists in the state.