About the author  ⁄ Craig M. DeFriez, P.E., S.E.

Craig M. DeFriez, P.E., S.E. (cmdefriez@yahoo.com), is a consulting structural engineer living in Carson City, Nevada. During his career he has had extensive experience in plan checking, peer reviews, and code interpretation and enforcement.

In Part 1 of this article (July 2014), I examined the wind load provisions in ASCE 7-10 to illustrate how the ever-increasing complexity of code provisions has negatively impacted our profession. In this second and final installment, I would like to take a look at where we have been as a profession in recent decades, and perhaps extrapolate where we are heading if current trends continue.

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Part 1

In a recent Structural Forum column, A Remarkable Profession!, September 2013, Stan Caldwell pointed out some of the negative aspects of structural engineering that often prompt complaints from its practitioners. Those comments resonated with me and, I suspect, many of the more seasoned engineers who have witnessed significant changes in the profession over the past few decades.

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