Engineering General Practitioners

What is an engineering general practitioner? 

General practice engineers are usually Chartered Members of Engineering New Zealand or Chartered Professional Engineers, who work predominantly for domestic, commercial and industrial clients on small-scale projects. They carry out complex work within their practice area and may also do more general/non-complex work outside of their practice area where they have experience and competence in – and when necessary, refer this work on to specialist engineers in the relevant field.

Why do we have a special interest group? 

For ten years, a group of engineers had been catching up for monthly coffee meetings in Silverdale, Auckland, where conversations often centred around dealing with council changes and keeping up-to-date with Engineering New Zealand. However, a meeting 18 months ago highlighted a problem – many engineers in the group were having serious issues maintaining their credentials with the council and/or Engineering New Zealand by way of their CPEng assessments. 

These problems affected the way these engineers conducted business and their ability to carry on with their practice. After much discussion, the group (supported by the wider Rodney Engineers group) decided to form a Special Interest Group within the umbrella of Engineering New Zealand. The group formed to be known as Special Interest Group for Engineering General Practitioners and covers all engineering disciplines.

Why should I join? 

Benefits of being a part of the Special Interest Group for Engineering General Practitioners include:

• Ongoing professional development, specific to your needs
• Belong to local Engineering general practitioner networks
• Work with Engineering New Zealand to recognise ‘good general practice’
• Be a part of our LinkedIn page and join the discussion
• Promote general practice engineering

Together we can:

• Encourage engineers from a range of fields who define themselves as ‘generalists’ to join the group and share experiences
• Work towards an Engineering General Practice quality mark with Engineering New Zealand
• Differentiate and establish both general practice and specialist practice skills, and promote learning of general practice skills
• Promote discussion, learning, and coffee groups for engineers who work in these practice areas
• Promote volunteer “Colleague Reviews” between members
• Make organisations such as Engineering New Zealand, Councils, MBIE and others aware of the challenges we face
• Raise the standard of work presented to Councils by engineers
• Promote the removal of the Council requirements to carry out their own assessment of engineers

Our Group needs you! Click here to join. Our newly elected committee are working hard and gearing up for a great year ahead:

Chair – Pete van Grinsven               CPEng Liaison – Don Thomson

Secretary – Bruce Tricker                Councils/TIA’s Liaison – Aaron Holland

Treasurer – Jennifer Lo                    Public Liaison – Gordon Hughes

CPD Coordinator – Julie Elliott      Committee Member – Ian Watson