In this paper, we propose an estimation method of the parameter in an exponential distribution based on a progressive Type I interval censored sample with semi-missing observation. The maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) of the parameter in the exponential distribution cannot be obtained explicitly because the intervals are not equal in length under the progressive Type I interval censored sample with semi-missing data. To obtain the MLE of the parameter for the sampling scheme, we propose a method by which progressive Type I interval censored sample with semi-missing data is converted to the progressive Type II interval censored sample. Consequently, the estimation procedures in the progressive Type II interval censored sample can be applied and we obtain the MLE of the parameter and survival function. It will be shown that the obtained estimators have good performance in terms of the mean square error (MSE) and mean integrated square error (MISE).