Many residents in Iowa may have heard of their county’s engineer, but may not know much about the position.

Guthrie County Engineer Josh Sebern says that the County Engineer is responsible for the administration and management of a county’s secondary roads network, making sure that roads are safe for the motoring public. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio that there weren’t always county engineers in Iowa though, and it was only as motorized vehicles like the Ford Model A started becoming popular that a decision to begin requiring them was made.

“The Iowa legislature saw a need for them, for qualified peoples to be designing the roadways of rural Iowa so in 1913 the Iowa legislature required counties to hire a professional engineer.”

Sebern mentions that a professional engineer is an individual who attends an accredited engineering program at a four year college and takes a fundamentals of engineering exam to become an engineer. He adds that the individual then needs to spend four years as an apprentice engineer, then take another exam to become a licensed professional engineer.