The NEBB Professional 2025 - Quarter 3

The Stamp: Another tell tale item that most peo ple know to look for on a report is the stamp of the Certified Professional. Since there are other

That notwithstanding, this article aims to educate you as a design professional and/or building owner or manager. If you personally know what to look for and the individual items that are required to be included in a certified report, then issues will rarely, if ever, esca late to the point of requiring intervention from NEBB. An additional benefit to this training is that you will personally begin to notice the difference in the reports you receive and will be able to independently deter mine whether the firms you are hiring are providing you with the quality product you require. Over time, any bad actors (and, to be fair, there are very few of these relative to the number of quality, ethical NEBB Certified Firms) will either be pushed by the market to comply with NEBB’s standards or have to search for work not requiring certification – another reason why NEBB Certified Reports should be a standard require ment across all project specifications. In conclusion, it is worth noting NEBB is not the only organization that provides certifications to individuals and firms in various disciplines. Often, project specifi cations note a number of acceptable certifications that a design professional is willing to accept in lieu of NEBB certification and each of those certifications have their own requirements. While NEBB Certified Firms believe that their certification is the best, it is the responsibility of each design professional to be familiar with the qual ifications and requirements of any other certifying in stitution. Additionally, it is well within the rights of any firm to choose the standards by which they will abide. For this reason, there are many firms that are certified through NEBB and other certifying organizations. A firm

certifying organiza tions that provide stamps to their members for use in providing certified documentation, the majority of people are trained to look for a stamp on the cover sheet of a report. NEBB pro

vides stamps only to Certified Professionals who are currently employed by Certified Firms. Thus, a NEBB stamp will contain both the name of the NEBB Certified Professional and the NEBB Certified Firm by which they are employed. Moreover, NEBB re quires that the stamp also be provided on a report with the Certified Professional’s signature as an indication that they have personally reviewed the report and has determined that it meets the requirements outlined by NEBB. While a certified report must have the stamp of the Certified Professional responsible for review ing it, this stamp alone (or in unison with only the certificates, as mentioned in the previous paragraph) does not certify a report. Protecting YOU and the NEBB Name As previously mentioned, NEBB has a committee ded icated to working with the service providers who fail to meet NEBB’s standards while submitting reports that are supposed to be NEBB certified. While the NEBB CAC does have disciplinary options it can choose to exercise, the primary objective of the organization is to provide mentorship and guidance, with help from the disci pline-specific Technical Committees, to firms and pro fessionals that may legitimately need additional training. This committee works closely with NEBB’s technical committees to provide feedback to firms on the con tent, composition, and formatting of their reports. The purpose of this mentoring is that it will ultimately help a firm to improve the quality of their reports and maintain the high standards for which NEBB is known.

can, therefore, choose to certify any report with whichever cer tification they choose, provided these meet the requirements outlined in the project specifica tions. NEBB is not legally able or in the business of forcing firms to only certify reports using their NEBB credentials. We just believe that the NEBB standard is the gold standard and should be what any design professional requires when they need a job done right.

READ, QUIZ, EARN! After reading the full issue, please go to the NEBB Learning Center at https://nlc.nebb.org to take a 5-question quiz to earn 0.25 NEBB CEC/1 AIA LU!

The NEBB Professional | Quarter 3 | 2025

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