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Mr. James Hansen Smith, P.E., M.ASCE

Bergmann (Colliers Engineering & Design, Inc.)

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Bergmann (Colliers Engineering & Design, Inc.)
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Mr. James Smith, P.E., M.ASCE


Bergmann (Colliers Engineering & Design, Inc.)

My Content

1 to 20 of 32 total

RE: Questions about licensure

Posted By James Smith 07-16-2020 02:23 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Tung, many states will waive the FE if you have your PhD in Civil Engineering.  Something to look into. As far as studying goes the FE exam has changed dramatically since I took it (in 2013).  As you're probably aware you can take it more often (not just twice a year), it's digital (no pencil/paper), ...

RE: Questions about licensure

Posted By James Smith 07-15-2020 06:49 PM
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I would agree that School of PE was very helpful.  I didn't take the course, but was able to use leftover notes from a co-worker. I also used the Lindberg book quite a bit.  It's pricey, but it's a good resource for having all in the information in one place and used it a lot on exam day.  The companion ...

RE: What percentage of your salary do you put towards retirement, and how early in your career did you start saving?

Posted By James Smith 01-27-2020 10:09 AM
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Great topic! I started saving for retirement after graduating college at 22 in 2014.  I started with a  Traditional 401k at about 10% and transitioned to a Roth 401k once that was available.  I've tried to raise that by 1% a year and depending on how things are going will cap that off around 20% if I ...

RE: Incorporating Sustainability in Your Life

Posted By James Smith 01-09-2020 02:14 PM
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Kelly raises a good point about the environmental impacts of paper vs. plastic on the bags in the upstream.  It would make sense that paper bags have a bigger footprint.  After all they're much heavier and comprised of more material.  That is, one paper bag takes up more space and is heavier than one ...

RE: Incorporating Sustainability in Your Life

Posted By James Smith 12-09-2019 10:11 AM
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Great topic Danielle!  Sustainability is an especially important topic, not only in our work but in our daily lives.  We must lead by example! Personally I keep a steel extra knife, spoon, and fork from home that I wash reuse for all my lunches.  I bring a tumbler for coffee and water from home that ...

RE: Millennial Retirement

Posted By James Smith 11-19-2019 06:13 PM
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Some great feedback so far! One thing I did want to mention Tel is that most retirement investment firms recommend saving approximately 1/2 year salary by age 30 and 1 year salary by age 40.  These are by no means fixed metrics, but if you start investing in your 401k later your will need to invest ...

Millennial Retirement

Posted By James Smith 11-08-2019 04:27 PM
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Someone recently shared an article with me about millennial retirement that got me thinking, and I wanted to see what others thought.  Millennials being ages 20-37, most are now in the workforce making these decisions about retirement.  Here's the article: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/23/millenni ...

RE: Miscommunication at Construction Sites

Posted By James Smith 10-07-2019 10:06 AM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Great topic!  One issue I've had with Yance's suggestion with these meetings is that the people in attendance are more senior staff that aren't actually the ones at the site.  They are  usually the contractor firm's construction manager, which has seen much more plans and usually has an engineering degree, ...

RE: Entry Level Positions

Posted By James Smith 09-16-2019 05:39 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
I think it may more to do with your location and timing than a slowdown of hiring entry level engineers.  With the new school year starting and career fairs kicking off most firms should be getting into full gear to hire entry level positions right now.  So maybe less over the past few months, but I'd ...

RE: University Hunt

Posted By James Smith 09-04-2019 11:04 PM
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Shahab, Way to be thinking early!  There's certainly lots of university programs out there for Transportation Masters degrees, but I think you may have the wrong mindset.  Certainly aiming for a prestigious university is always a good aim, but particularly with Masters programs it's more about what ...

RE: How has mentoring advanced your career?

Posted By James Smith 08-19-2019 05:03 PM
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I've been involved in mentoring programs both as the mentor, and mentee.  Ultimately I found that you get out of it what you put into it, but that both parties have to be equally involved. I work with programs at a local high school to mentor kids for a class period a month and talk about various ...

RE: Internships - Your Experience?

Posted By James Smith 08-19-2019 03:07 PM
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While I think getting an internship should always be your 1st priority, don't think that if you exhaust all efforts and don't get one that you will not be able to get an engineering job.  I know myself and many others had that pit in our stomach after not getting one after the career fair had come and ...

RE: Rate of Return on Big Schools vs Small Schools

Posted By James Smith 08-06-2019 03:32 PM
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As most others have pointed out there isn't a direct correlation between size vs price vs quality when it comes to college.  As much as we as engineers like to find simple "optimal" equations in our work and in life, this is another decision that doesn't have a clear right/wrong answer.  The decision ...

RE: Questions about licensure

Posted By James Smith 07-29-2019 02:42 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
I would caution against using older resources.  As frustrating as it is, they do change the exam every year, updating the recommended texts you need to bring.  Sure, it usually isn't major but they're prone to ask questions basically to see if you have the latest versions with you.  For example when ...

RE: Advice on Salaries for Beginner Engineering Positions

Posted By James Smith 07-22-2019 03:55 PM
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As others have alluded it's a very complex questions, and like others I highly recommend trying the ASCE salary calculator to get an idea.  Even still there's a lot more to a job than just the salary in terms of compensation.  When you look over offers, one may pay a lot more but have a lot worse benefits.  ...

RE: Questions about licensure

Posted By James Smith 07-22-2019 03:33 PM
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I would strongly advise against taking the PE before you have your 4 years of experience if you plan to apply for licensure in other states, especially if they require it before taking the exam.  I have several co-workers that took advantage of being able to take the exam early in our state (Michigan).  ...

RE: Going into Practice or Back to School for an M.S.?

Posted By James Smith 07-15-2019 11:22 AM
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I would have to agree with Bill.  I would also like to add that I think a lot of people long in this profession have lost sight with how much the cost of education has sky-rocketed.  I think for most people they really need to take a look into the cost of getting that secondary education degree. Particularly ...

RE: Can I work as a Civil Engineer with the background of Environmental Engineer

Posted By James Smith 07-15-2019 10:57 AM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
I would completely agree with Chad!  Especially early on in your career, an engineering background is the main thing.  A lot of people will get an engineering degree in one area, and end up doing a different type of engineering altogether.  It's the foundation of math, science, and problem solving that ...

RE: What technological tools do you use to manage your priorities?

Posted By James Smith 07-08-2019 10:37 AM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
We have been implanting Microsoft Teams into some projects to better track project progress.  That way we can easily set intermediate deadlines for individual tasks to keep the project moving, opposed to just submittal dates.  It's helped to keep everyone on the same page and prevent cramming to do all ...

RE: Negative Emotions on Your Project Team

Posted By James Smith 07-01-2019 02:40 PM
Found In Egroup: Career By Design \ view thread
Along the lines of what Stephanie said, I'd like to add about resolving the conflict.  In life, the overwhelming majority of people seek to avoid conflict.  That doesn't mean they avoid problems, though. We frequently avoid doing things, bad or good, that will draw about conflict.  But, the reality is ...