So what are YOU worth?

By Timothy Allinson, P.E.

Murray Company, Long Beach, Calif.

In these tough economic times, it's good to be employed in an industry that may not be glamorous, but is relatively consistent in its opportunities for employment. I have heard it said many times that there is always a need for talented plumbing engineers, and, if you know what you are doing, you will never struggle for work in our industry.

Despite this fact, at my firm we recently lost one of our young engineers to the nuclear power industry. We must be paying too much for electricity here in So Cal, because the local utility hired this kid, just a year or so out of school, at a 45% increase in the salary we were paying him -- and contractors pay pretty well to begin with. In fact, he is making a salary that took me about 10 years to reach as a consulting engineer in NYC. This got me thinking about what we engineers are paid, what we are worth, and what others are worth.

If your name is Susan Atkins and you are serving a life sentence for 8 counts of murder orchestrated by Charles Manson, including the murder of Sharon Tate and her 8-1/2 month unborn baby, you are worth millions. Atkins was recently denied a request for parole based on her terminal brain cancer, wanting to live her final months in freedom with her hubby (gotta wonder about him) in the lush surrounds of Orange County, Calif. At the time of this writing, her medical services and special security needs had cost the State of California in excess of $1.5 million between March and July. By the time you read this, she may be dead, but the bill will surely have doubled. From a financial perspective she should have been released: It would have saved the state millions. But I'm still glad that she wasn't. (Is this too politico? I've been criticized for that in the past.)

If your name isn't Susan Atkins, and you are a plumbing engineer, you probably wonder every once in a while if you are fairly paid -- it is only natural. In my travels overseas, I learned that in many other countries, such as Egypt and Indonesia, engineers are revered and paid on a par with doctors. There is an insufficient supply of talented engineers in these countries -- probably an insufficient number of qualified doctors as well. The good ones, it seems, leave to come here to the United States, despite their revered status at home.

In researching this issue, I found some very interesting websites. Some have historical data, while others have salary calculators plug in your educational, professional and demographic information, and the calculator spits out a theoretical salary.

One of the problems with these websites is that most of them do not list plumbing engineering as a discipline. Most have limited job titles within construction in general. But, according to engineersalary.com, using the closest available data, my salary should be $103,975. If my title were chief technical officer that wage would increase to a theoretical $275,678 -- not bad. Maybe one day.

But what about the young engineer who just left the firm? Was he being fairly paid? Quite by chance, shortly after he left, and I had started writing this article, mepjobs.com released its 2008 Salary Survey Report. According to the report, the national average skilled trades' salary was $52,000. This is considerably more than the national average per capita income of $38,611. Ironically, the highest statewide reported MEP salary was my home state of California with an average of $62,400, and the highest reported citywide salary within the state and nation was again my own stomping ground of Los Angeles, which weighed in at $66,560.

Within California, the average salary for MEP specialists with less than five years of experience was $54,750; that increased to $70,000 for those with more than 11 years of experience. Correcting those figures for the Los Angeles premium, I realized that the young engineer who left had, in fact, been underpaid, and consequently, his peers who didn't leave received a corrective raise. Unknowingly, we were behind the times in our entry--level pay scale; something that one can easily lose sight of. Times certainly have changed since my entry--level salary of $29K but so have the prices of gas and real estate.

If you want to increase your salary, one of the things you can do to leverage yourself is bolster your qualifications. Education and professional credentials are two of the best ways of so doing. Your employer will not necessarily automatically give you a raise for completing a new level of education or for passing the LEED or P.E. exam, but these can certainly be used as bartering chips, and they give you more clout if you are making a job transition.

Another way to increase your income is to branch off on your own. This is far more risky, however, and certainly you need to know what you are doing, otherwise you will fall flat on your face. The first thing you need in order to branch off on your own is a strong entrepreneurial drive. Self--employment can be done at many levels, but it takes a strong stomach first and foremost. If you are a skilled CAD operator with the burning desire to be your own boss, you can work freelance from home if you can establish a client base in need of your services. You might be making $25 an hour as an employee; that figure could easily be increased to $50 an hour working freelance, but you don't necessarily have any guarantees of a 40--hour week. It could be a lot less; then again, it could be a lot more, if things go well.

If you are an engineer working for $50 an hour as an employee, you could branch off and charge $100 hourly for your services, but you still carry a lot more overhead and risk. There are business expenses such as computers, programs, printers and the like, but there are also tax advantages to offset those. There are health insurance issues and liability insurance requirements. Will you work alone as a plumbing consultant? Or team up with others to provide full service MEP? Working as a team can spread the risk and overhead but carries other complications as well. Relationships are sorely tested when entering a business partnership, and many have been spoiled by the ensuing demands.

While self--employment can yield financial advantages -- be it sole proprietorship or a partnership -- there is another thing to consider that I call “the happiness factor.” It can be a delight to shed the burden of having a boss and instead become the boss. But guess what? Being a boss, especially in a sole proprietorship, is a 24-hour job. You may only actually work 40, 50 or 60 hours a week, but your mind will be on the job 120 hours a week; at least it should be if you are to be successful. This responsibility does not result in happiness for everyone. For those with what I referred to earlier as a strong entrepreneurial drive, it is a natural state of being, and it will not interfere with happiness; in fact it will create happiness. But for those who are not so purely entrepreneurial, the compromise between work, family life and personal interests can soon become taxing.

One last thought is that entrepreneurial adventures are most suited for the young, or the not--so--young who have few familial responsibilities. Risking your own future is one thing. Risking the future of your family is another, and it needs to be discussed and agreed upon by those impacted by your decision. But perhaps I am stating the obvious. If you are happily employed but question your compensation, I encourage you to visit the websites I referenced above or any others you might find on-line. There are few things that anger me as much as an engineer who does not receive proper compensation. Our industry is notorious for underselling itself. So do your research and determine your fair market value. If you are not receiving it, by all means try to change that. If you have a compelling argument it will be hard for anyone to tell you no.

Ironically, after completing this article, I found that U.S. News & World Report has just published an article titled, "9 Reasons Your Salary Isn't Higher." Most of the reasons cited are out of your control. According to the article and its studies, your pay will be higher if you are a tall, left-handed, married man who is a social drinker with a lucrative college major, such as engineering or mathematics. I guess I should start practicing writing with my left hand and see whether my boss notices.

 

Timothy Allinson is a Senior Professional Engineer with Murray Company, Mechanical Contractors, in Long Beach, Calif. Prior to entering the design--build industry he worked for Popov Engineers, Inc. in Irvine, Calif, and JB&B in New York City. Tim holds a BSME from Tufts University and an MBA from New York University. He is a professional engineer licensed in both mechanical and fire protection engineering in various states, and is a leed Accredited Professional. Tim is a past-president of ASPE, both the New York and Orange County Chapters, and sits on the board of the Society of American Military Engineers, Orange County Post.