Here in my state NJ, that use to be the way. Once you got a license, you never looked in the NEC. Well the state took care of that and makes all Lic. guys to have CEU's. It use to be good when the time was 10 hours for continuing credits, but the electrical organizations screwed that up. They pushed for more hours and now believe it is 35 hours for the CEU's. I don't need them anymore because I am a AHJ. I do however need classes to keep my HHS license.