Engineer blasts rival for thriving without a license.

• Author: Yates, Eleanor Lee
• Position: Harry Boody

Things have gotten a little hot lately in heating and air-conditioning circles. There's Harry Boody of Jamestown, whose customers pay a $7,500 premium for him to design a custom energy system. And there's Bruce Venable of Greensboro, who wants Boody to cool it.

Venable is a licensed engineer. Boody is not. Venable, owner of Pure Air Inc., which cleans ventilation systems, says he's tired of clearing mold and mildew from Boody's systems. He thinks there are problems with the design. Earlier this year, he complained to the state Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors in Raleigh.

The board agreed that Boody is practicing engineering without a license. In May it referred the case to the state attorney general's office, which could prosecute Boody for the misdemeanor of impersonating an engineer. The board suggested the case be handled out of court, perhaps with a consent agreement.

Boody chalks it all up to a vendetta. Earlier this year, Venable was speaking at a residential-energy seminar in Greensboro, when Boody chirped up from the audience. "I corrected him," Boody says. "There wasn't an argument or anything. Just the sounds of a lot of people scratching out what they had just written." Venable filed his complaint two weeks later. He's president of the Greensboro Heating and Air Conditioning Contractors Association, but the association isn't party to his complaint.

The case forced the board, which issues engineering licenses, to clear up a couple of fuzzy areas in HVAC as to who can do what. It ruled that David Klett, the licensed engineer Boody gets to approve his work, is just rubber-stamping it. Boody now has three options, says Jerry Carter, the board's executive director. He can hire an engineer, get licensed himself or get out of the business.

"If you work for industry, such as IBM, you don't have to have an engineering license," Carter says. You do if you're selling services to the public. And like mass-produced HVAC, Boody's custom designs need an engineer's seal. Klett, who has a doctorate in mechanical engineering and is a longtime professor at N.C. A&T, has signed off on all of Boody's work since 1982. The board ruled an engineer must actually design the product.

Boody says he's never claimed to be an engineer, which is a little disingenuous. In '89, the board forced him to drop his slogan, "Engineering systems design approach to energy conservation." Now he pitches, "A scientific approach to energy...