Registered professional titles are Irish engineering’s ‘gold standard’

Engineers Ireland-registered professional titles provide peer-reviewed and international formal recognition of members’ professional competence, skills, experience and training. They offer a clear way for engineering professionals to signal their knowledge and expertise to employers, stakeholders, decision-makers and clients.

We speak to four of this year’s recipients of professional titles.

Edith Blennerhassett, Fellow

Edith Blennerhassett sees her professional title of Fellow of Engineers Ireland as recognition of a long, happy and successful career in engineering. It also comes with responsibility.

“It puts me in the position of someone who people can reach out to and speak to about a career in engineering,” she says. As someone who already does a certain amount of speaking and mentoring, she says becoming a fellow “puts an onus on you to give something back”.

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Blennerhassett decided to become an engineer as a result of an Engineers Ireland recruitment drive in girls’ schools back in the 1980s.

“I never contemplated engineering before that,” she recalls. “That campaign had an impact but the numbers of women coming into engineering hasn’t really increased that much since then, unfortunately.”

She went on to do a degree in civil engineering in University College Dublin. Having worked with Kildare County Council on Ireland’s first motorway project, the Naas bypass, she then looked abroad to pursue her career.

“There was very little work in the country at the time,” she says. “I saw an ad for a job with a building services engineering company in London. I knew very little about that area at the time but I got the job. The company was very strong on energy efficiency at the time. They were into sustainability before it became fashionable.”

Blennerhassett stayed there for 11 years before returning to Ireland for family reasons. She joined Varming Consulting Engineers before moving on to Buro Happold. That firm pulled out of Ireland during the recession of the late 2000s and she set up her own practice.

“I did that for four years before joining Arup in 2014,” she says. “I worked for them in Dublin for six years before moving to their London office in 2020.

“Building services is a very exciting area to be in as people get more concerned about climate change. Being a Fellow of Engineers Ireland will help me to influence the industry for the better. It will also allow me to help people to come into the industry and to understand how engineers are at the forefront of the battle against climate change.”

David Purcell, Chartered Engineer

David Purcell has been conferred with the title of chartered engineer. A technical leader at Lufthansa Technik Turbine in Shannon, Purcell started his career with the company on the factory floor in 1996.

“I saw the work the engineers were doing and I liked it,” he says. “I studied at night to get a City & Guilds diploma in mechanical engineering from the Limerick Institute of Technology.”

He progressed to the engineering design team in the company and was advised to get a degree to advance his career further. “I got my degree from the Open University in 2017,” he recalls.

That saw him achieve a number of promotions. He also got involved with the Thomond region of Engineers Ireland and decided to go on to seek the Chartered Engineer professional title.

“Chartered Engineer professional title recognition is really significant,” he says. “You have to go through a rigorous process to demonstrate your qualification, experience, the projects you’ve worked on and the impact you’ve had on your field. It’s the gold standard, a real seal of approval that you have achieved a significant level of competency in the field.”

Fabrice Shikayi, Associate Engineer

Fabrice Shikayi studied electrical and mechanical engineering in his native Democratic Republic of Congo before spending 15 years in South Africa where he worked for engineering and contracting company Murray & Roberts as a senior electrician.

“I had to prove my competency and overcome the language barrier,” he explains. “I had learned everything through French and didn’t even know the English word for screwdriver.”

Multiple promotions later he found himself running a department in the company’s headquarters in Johannesburg. He joined contracting firm Grinaker in 2021 before moving to Ireland as an automation engineer with CSL Environmental Solutions in Carlow in June 2023.

“I had been receiving approaches from recruiters in Europe but ignored them as I thought they were scams,” he says. “Then one guy contacted me again and convinced me it was real.”

Having found that there was a mutual recognition agreement between Engineers Ireland and its South African counterpart, Shikayi applied successfully for the Associate Engineer professional title.

“It’s very important to be registered and recognised by the professional body for engineers,” he says. “Being part of Engineers Ireland gives me access to continuous professional development opportunities. I am in a new country and know almost no one. The networking opportunities it offers are very important. My future goal is to go a step further and become a chartered engineer.”

John O’Brien, Engineering Technician

John O’Brien describes his journey to earning the professional title of Engineering Technician as a long one. It began in the late 1980s when he started as an apprentice draughtsperson with a small Fermoy, Co Cork-based consulting engineering practice. He spent 14 years with the firm, gaining experience in computer-aided design on the way. After a stint with a timber-frame-home company in Cahir, Co Tipperary, he rejoined and spent another 13 years there until the firm moved out of the design business.

“I joined Waterman Kelly Consulting Engineers in Cork in 2018,” he says. “The firm is very CPD oriented. I spoke to a representative from Engineers Ireland one day about the experiential learning side of things and recognition for it. That kicked off the process. I am very proud to have been awarded the Engineering Technician title.”

It has opened doors for him already as formal qualifications or recognition by a professional body is required to carry out certain activities.

“I have been approved to go on a course to become a BER assessor and another to become an EPA site assessor for effluent treatment systems,” says O’Brien. “I am now planning to go down the Associate Engineer route. That’s my next goal.”