J. C. Remington, Jr.: The Man Behind New Jersey’s Engineering Standards
John. C. Remington, Jr., better known as J. C. Remington, was one of the original founders and members of the State Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. His 30-year tenure on the Board marked a time of great advancement for the profession as it evolved from an unlicensed occupation into a true profession, governed by rigorous licensing, education, testing and experience requirements.
When Mr. Remington started his career, through the first quarter of the twentieth century, it was common for untrained individuals to work as land surveyors and engineers without the need to prove any competency. There was no consistency or standards regarding education or training, so work product varied in quality and safety. Also, at that time, there was no clear distinction between the roles and responsibilities of land surveyors and that of engineers.
J. C. Remington realized that this untenable situation needed to change for both professions to earn public trust and continue to grow. He, with four colleagues, spearheaded developing what became the Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors to codify the profession and to protect the health, safety and welfare of New Jerseyans. An unconfirmed story asserts that the five founders pulled numbers out of a hat to decide license numbers and roles in the new board; while no confirmation exists, Remington was assigned PE license #3.
The Board, which covered both surveyors and engineers, reflected the practices of that time. Surveyors and engineers worked closely and their roles and responsibilities could overlap. In the early part of last century, many land surveyors served as field engineers and had no professional degrees. The Board helped define the roles and responsibilities of each role to protect each profession. The primary purpose of the Board was to develop standard qualifications and impose stricter regulations on how work was done and who was qualified to perform the work. Surveyors were tasked with performing surveys, including topographic surveys, to identify land boundaries and to prevent boundary disputes; engineers were focused on the safety of the environment. That separation continues today: surveyors work with what already exists, engineers focus on what is proposed.
The unpaid Board members faced a daunting task: how to develop a licensure program that would protect the public while attracting qualified, respectable professionals-to-be. Hampering the effort was the complete absence of accredited college level engineering programs—they simply did not exist. Remington took matters into his own hands and administered his own engineering and surveying exams to establish who was qualified, a practice that continued until examination became routine about a decade later. It would take until 1936 for the accreditation organization ABET, originally known as the Engineers’ Council for Professional Development, to evaluate its first engineering program; the first engineering technology program was evaluated in 1946.
In addition to education and experience, there was an ethical component to licensure, enforced by the Board, in keeping with Remington’s belief that engineering was an honorable profession. In 1921 New Jersey began licensing both Professional Surveyors and Professional Engineers.
As each state developed its own licensure laws with varying standards, members of the licensing boards realized the need for a central national council to coordinate their efforts. The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES), created in 1920, focuses on providing services to advance licensure and facilitate mobility among the licensing jurisdictions. Interestingly, New Jersey did not immediately join the Council but waited until 1931, the time of the Depression. Remington and the Board wanted to ensure the organization would uphold the standards they worked so hard to implement. Then, as now, the densely populated State required more regulation than other areas to ensure standards were met. Once the State joined NCEES, Remington rose to a leadership position, serving as the first president from New Jersey from 1946 to 1947.
There was much more to J. C. Remington than his contributions to his profession. While they can’t be proven, some mythology remains:
• Remington was an admirer of larger-than-life baseball great Babe Ruth. During the 1920s, Ruth traveled through various towns along the East Coast to host home run hitting contests. Allegedly, Remington bested the athlete and won the contest and subsequent bragging rights.
• Perhaps buoyed by besting Ruth, Remington boasted of his baseball prowess. He often claimed that he could have been a professional baseball player…but decided there was more money in engineering!
• Remington was well connected in New Jersey—that much we know. What is not known, although it is part of his lore, is if the rumor that he was asked to run for governor but declined, preferring to run his engineering firm, is true.
The fields of survey and engineering continued to adapt and evolve. “While my grandfather J. C. Remington would not recognize how much of today’s engineering work gets done,” said Craig F. Remington, PLS, PP, Vice Chairman of RVE, “he certainly would approve of the Board’s ongoing commitment to strengthen the profession and its positive impact on local communities.”
The digital revolution and ongoing advances in technology have changed the survey and engineering communities dramatically and the post-pandemic business model will no doubt bring additional challenges. The Board is well positioned to adapt and address them all as it enters its second century of leadership.
