Beginning in April 2011, the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) recommended the 16-hour structural exam as the standard for demonstrating minimum competence in the practice of structural engineering. As a result, structural engineering became the only professional engineering discipline requiring more than an 8-hour exam in many jurisdictions. Prior to this date, some states already had some form of structural engineering legislation and, since 2011, more states have either passed or attempted to pass S.E. legislation. For Georgia, the Structural Engineers Association of Georgia (SEAOG) started looking at developing an easily understandable and compelling reason for structural engineering legislation soon after April 2011. This included making sure complex structures were being designed by qualified engineers and addressing a competitive disadvantage that engineers in Georgia who were designing structures faced, compared to engineers from states that had a P.E., S.E. designation.