Naval Architecture, that's fascinating! That's Naval Architecture as in ship hulls or decks, not harbors etc?
Have to say, I poked around at a number of PE certification links first and found a lot of state PE offices linked with Land Surveying. Other sources like wikipedia note that PE certs in the US exempt many interstate industries such as Mechanical, Chemical, and Aerospace Engineering.
Yeah that's the only kind of PE I've met. As a profession they do not impress. These guys are incapable of imagining anything they haven't done before a hundred times, let alone doing it and putting their seal on it.
Generally speaking, you don't want creative processes for the construction of overpasses, highways, and building construction. You want something that is structurally sound, safe for the application in question, and of a design suitable to being bid on by multiple contractors.
I can't say that I blame them, if I recall correctly, putting their seal on it implies the assumption of legal liability for the fitness of the design by the PE. Under those circumstances, I would make strongly conservative decisions too.
