Many years ago, there was televangelist who built quite an empire before he fell from grace in a very public manner. He still struggles on even today but in a much less opulent way than he did in the earlier years. This fellow liked the Lear Jets ( a rather nice fleet of them) with the Rolls Royce engines; even though my lab was primarily environmental monitoring, his chief pilot was desperate to get some demanding and peculiar analyses ( all wet chemistry instead of much more reliable modern technology) on the methanol injection fuel to meet RR criteria.

We did the analyses for several months, uneventfully, until there showed an outstanding invoice for $184.00 that was getting moldy. When I checked on it, the chief pilot told me “sometimes he doesn’t pay certain bills because the Lord told him that people could contribute to the ministry in that fashion”. I told him it was OK with me, but the next time one of those little jets was taking off and the pilot hit the injection fuel, I couldn’t guarantee that the analysis on that batch was good. The bill was paid in 3 days. Can I hear an “AMEN”?

Speaking of televangelist, I have an interesting experiment for folks to try out at home. Go find a sermon with Jimmy Swaggart and, keeping the sound off, watch 10 or 15 minutes of his body language. Then, also with no sound on, watch 10 to 15 minutes of Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth”. In the word of Mr. Spock, “Fascinating!”

Dennis M. Mitchell,
Laurel Hill, FL

Dennis M. Mitchell, QEP

A Qualified Environmental Professional (QEP) is an environmental professional certified by IPEP. A QEP has demonstrated his/her expertise, in terms of knowledge and experience, in multi-media environmental assessment, management, and control. The international IPEP certification program is third-party accredited by CESB and complies with ASTM Standard E1329-98, “Standard Practice for the Assessment of Certification Programs for Environmental Professionals: Accreditation Criteria”. A QEP is required to abide by the IPEP Code of Ethics and to maintain professional competence through continuing education as a function of recertification.

American Society of Testing and Materials (www.astm.org)
Council of Engineering and Scientific Specialty Boards (www.cesb.org)
Institute of Professional Environmental Practice (www.ipep.org)