At my last employer, in 2007... I was a guy with a BS in mech. engineering technology. The company was 4 years old (spin-off of an existing company) that sold turn-key conveyor systems (mechanical, installation, controls, homegrown HMI...).
As a project lead EE- they billed my time at $77/hr. Ie- if the sales nuts quoted that the job would take 100 EE hours, that portion of the project cost $7700. That EE time would include, scope review, design meetings, CAD and drawings, panel BOM, travel and start up support. Programming was quoted separately and was billed at a few $/hr more.
If I were in business for myself, I'd have to charge more/hr than that, but I think that its a good place to start for the value of a controls guy in America.