HOUSTON:  An Indian-American has been appointed as the Secretary of the Texas Board of Professional Engineers that licenses qualified engineers and regulates the practice of professional engineering in the US state.

Sockalingam “Sam” Kannappan, a professional engineer and senior design engineer for SNC-Lavalin Hydrocarbons and Chemicals, has been appointed as the Secretary of the Texas Board of Professional Engineers (TBPE) in Austin.

Houston-based Kannappan also serves as a board member of the Society of Piping Engineers and Designers and an advisory board member of the Asia Society’s Texas centre.

The Indian-American engineer will be signing all newly-issued licenses, TBPE said in a statement.

The board issues, monitors and renews roughly 57,000 licenses for engineers.

The board’s role in the protection of the public is to license qualified engineers, enforce the Texas Engineering Practice Act and to regulate the practice of professional engineering in Texas.

Kannappan is a mechanical engineering graduate of Annamalai University in Tamil Nadu and received his MS in mechanical engineering at the University of Texas in Austin.

Previously, Kannappan also served as a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Gas Pipeline Safety Research Committee, which defends Houston against bio-terrorism.

Additionally, from 2006 to 2011, he was on the Texas On-Site Wastewater Treatment Research Council.

Throughout his career, Kannappan has received a number of honours and awards, including an award from Crystal Dynamics group of NASA‘s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland for improving laser measurement accuracy.