Licensing: Your Key to Working Anywhere, at Any Time?

Not every engineering field requires the people practicing it to be licensed. But one field that does is civil engineering, and here's the tale of one man who has just landed his 50th civil engineering license, allowing him to work anywhere in the United States.

Tracy Letzring is also a licensed environmental engineer and registered structural engineer. He fully admits that having all of these licenses gives him and his company a marketing edge over the competition, but in practical matters, it also lets him work for any client in any state or city, and not just in his own neighborhood.

Working in different states requires different knowledge and skills. For example, Letzring says that California's license required him to learn about seismic migration, while he needed to learn about Arctic conditions to land his license in Alaska.

How much do you need to think about licenses in these particular careers? It's up to you. But you do want to plan ahead. It would suck if you had to turn down a job or couldn't land a client because you were licensed in one state but not in its neighbor. Something to consider...