Wayne Nutt, a retired engineer in North Carolina, just wanted to help out his neighbors. After he testified about a piping system that allegedly flood

State Charges 77-Year-Old for 'Practicing Engineering Without a License'

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2021-06-27 04:30:02

Wayne Nutt, a retired engineer in North Carolina, just wanted to help out his neighbors. After he testified about a piping system that allegedly flooded homes, the North Carolina Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors sent him a letter claiming he’d broken the law. The crime? Practicing engineering without a license. 

When his son, a lawyer, started working on a case involving homes that flooded following Hurricane Florence, Nutt volunteered to be an expert witness. “I have all my handbooks,” Nutt told Motherboard on the phone. “I can tell you what the capacity of the pipe was when it was in new condition…I can show you how obstructions would have reduced flow capacity. I wrote a report.”

Nutt is a retired engineer who worked for DuPont for years. He has a degree in engineering from the University of Iowa and retired in 2013. He was never a state licensed engineer because, in North Carolina, he operated under a “industrial exemption” while working for DuPont. Nutt’s particular expertise was in pipes and piping.

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