The following definitions apply in this Chapter:
(1) Board. - The North Carolina State Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors provided for by this Chapter.
(1a) Business firm. - A partnership, firm, association, or another organization or group that is not a corporation and is acting as a unit.
(2) Engineer. - A person who, by reason of special knowledge and use of the mathematical, physical and engineering sciences and the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design, acquired by engineering education and engineering experience, is qualified to practice engineering.
(3) Engineer intern. - A person who complies with the requirements for education, experience and character, and has passed an examination on the fundamentals of engineering as provided in this Chapter.
(3a) Inactive licensee. - A licensee who is not engaged in the practice of engineering or land surveying in this State, but renews his or her license as "inactive" as provided in this Chapter.
(4) Repealed by Session Laws 2022-1, s. 1(a), effective July 1, 2022, and applicable to applications for licensure on or after that date.
(4a) Land surveyor apprenticeship. - A program of on-the-job learning that allows individuals to prepare for the land surveying profession through supervised experience combined with land surveyor-related classroom instruction as approved by the Board.
(5) Person. - Any natural person, firm, partnership, corporation or other legal entity.
(6) Practice of engineering. -
a. Any service or creative work, the adequate performance of which requires engineering education, training, and experience, in the application of special knowledge of the mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences to such services or creative work as consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning, and design of engineering works and systems, planning the use of land and water, engineering surveys, and the observation of construction for the purposes of assuring compliance with drawings and specifications, including the consultation, investigation, evaluation, planning, and design for either private or public use, in connection with any utilities, structures, buildings, machines, equipment, processes, work systems, projects, and industrial or consumer products or equipment of a mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, pneumatic or thermal nature, insofar as they involve safeguarding life, health or property, and including such other professional services as may be necessary to the planning, progress and completion of any engineering services.
A person shall be construed to practice or offer to practice engineering, within the meaning and intent of this Chapter, who practices any branch of the profession of engineering; or who, by verbal claim, sign, advertisement, letterhead, card, or in any other way represents the person to be a professional engineer, or through the use of some other title implies that the person is a professional engineer or that the person is licensed under this Chapter; or who holds the person out as able to perform, or who does perform any engineering service or work not exempted by this Chapter, or any other service designated by the practitioner which is recognized as engineering.
b. The term "practice of engineering" shall not be construed to permit the location, description, establishment or reestablishment of property lines or descriptions of land boundaries for conveyance. The term does not include the assessment of an underground storage tank required by applicable rules at closure or change in service unless there has been a discharge or release of the product from the tank.
(7) Practice of land surveying. -
a. Providing professional services such as consultation, investigation, testimony, evaluation, planning, mapping, assembling, and interpreting reliable scientific measurements and information relative to the location, size, shape, or physical features of the earth, improvements on the earth, the space above the earth, or any part of the earth, whether the gathering of information for the providing of these services is accomplished by conventional ground measurements, by aerial photography, by global positioning via satellites, or by a combination of any of these methods, and the utilization and development of these facts and interpretations into an orderly survey map, plan, report, description, or project. The practice of land surveying includes the following:
1. Locating, relocating, establishing, laying out, or retracing any property line, easement, or boundary of any tract of land;
2. Locating, relocating, establishing, or laying out the alignment or elevation of any of the fixed works embraced within the practice of professional engineering;
3. Making any survey for the subdivision of any tract of land, including the topography, alignment and grades of streets and incidental drainage within the subdivision, and the preparation and perpetuation of maps, record plats, field note records, and property descriptions that represent these surveys;
4. Determining, by the use of the principles of land surveying, the position for any survey monument or reference point, or setting, resetting, or replacing any survey monument or reference point;
5. Determining the configuration or contour of the earth's surface or the position of fixed objects on the earth's surface by measuring lines and angles and applying the principles of mathematics or photogrammetry;
6. Providing geodetic surveying which includes surveying for determination of the size and shape of the earth both horizontally and vertically and the precise positioning of points on the earth utilizing angular and linear measurements through spatially oriented spherical geometry; and
7. Creating, preparing, or modifying electronic or computerized data, including land information systems and geographic information systems relative to the performance of the practice of land surveying.
b. The term "practice of land surveying" shall not be construed to permit the design or preparation of specifications for (i) major highways; (ii) wastewater systems; (iii) wastewater or industrial waste treatment works; (iv) pumping or lift stations; (v) water supply, treatment, or distribution systems; (vi) streets or storm sewer systems except as incidental to a subdivision.
(8) Professional engineer. - A person who has been duly licensed as a professional engineer by the Board established by this Chapter.
(8a) Professional engineer, retired. - A person who has been duly licensed as a professional engineer by the Board and who chooses to relinquish or not to renew a license and who applies to and is approved by the Board after review of record, including any disciplinary action, to be granted the use of the honorific title "Professional Engineer, Retired".
(9) Professional land surveyor. - A person who, by reason of special knowledge of mathematics, surveying principles and methods, and legal requirements which are acquired by education and/or practical experience, is qualified to engage in the practice of land surveying, as attested by the person's licensure as a professional land surveyor by the Board.
(9a) Professional land surveyor, retired. - A person who has been duly licensed as a professional land surveyor by the Board and who chooses to relinquish or not to renew a license and who applies to and is approved by the Board after review of record, including any disciplinary action, to be granted the use of the honorific title "Professional Land Surveyor, Retired".
(10) Responsible charge. - Direct control and personal supervision, either of engineering work or of land surveying, as the case may be. (1951, c. 1084, s. 1; 1953, c. 999, s. 1; 1973, c. 449; 1975, c. 681, s. 1; 1993 (Reg. Sess., 1994), c. 671, s. 1; 1996, 2nd Ex. Sess., c. 18, s. 7.10(i); 1998-118, s. 2; 2011-304, s. 1; 2013-98, s. 1; 2022-1, s. 1(a).)