Put obliquely: I suspect that Washington or California would have yielded better outcomes.
Perhaps. Here in Texas, practicing engineering without a license will result in a fine and a cease and desist, with criminal charges on subsequent occurrences.
I don't think the issue is the law, it's the seemingly capricious enforcement.
It might seem capricious, but what typically happens is that companies operate under the radar until they get caught. Unfortunately, being ignorant of the law is not a good excuse. I'm not even sure how you can have an engineering firm that large and be ignorant of the need for licensure. It sounds like they blew it off, and it finally came back to bite them.
What's capricious? They gave him a polite warning with an explanation and no penalty which he agreed to abide by, and then promptly broke. He only made it onto their radar because he contacted them in the first place to try and lean on a city that had issued a traffic ticket he was upset about.