011307 - Fire Protection Engineering
This expert has thirty-four years of experience and is a Licensed Fire Protection Engineer in 49 states and Guam. His expertise includes fire suppression and detection system design, fire hazards analyses, fire risk assessments, construction management, fire protection water distribution system evaluations, and project management. He has also provided legal testimony for fire cause and origin investigations; building and fire code analyses; life safety; slip, trip and falls; and fire protection system design, inspection, testing and maintenance.
He has experience performing fire and egress modeling to analyze the growth rates, smoke movement and travel, effects and characteristics of the fire, to evaluate the safe exit capacity of large assembly, business and educational occupancies and analyze post-fire events.
He has served as project manager, project engineer, and lead fire protection engineer on dozens of projects for public and private sector clients. His responsibilities have included serving as a primary contact between clients, planning design schedules, scheduling manpower and staffing, meeting the confines of the budget, and coordinating the fire protection engineering tasks to ensure a complete and correct fire protection design.
He is a member of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, Member Grade, National Fire Protection Association, NFPA Standards Council, NFPA Technical Committee on Airport Facilities, NFPA Technical Committee, Detention and Correctional Occupancies, NFPA Technical Committee on Electronic Computer Systems, NFPA Technical Committee on Health Care Emergency Management and Security, NFPA Technical Committee on Helicopter Facilities, NFPA Technical Committee on Marians and Boatyards, NFPA Technical Committee Chairman on National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code (SIG-PRO) and Alternate on SIG-NAC, and NFPA Technical Committee on Subterranean Spaces.
He is a Past President of the American Backflow Prevention Association, a Past President of MO-KAN Chapter of SFPE and an ICC Certified Special Inspector for spray-applied fire resistive materials.
Potomac Electric Power Watergate Pump Station
An electrical fire occurred in an underground flood control pump station, which housed four water pumps used to prevent flooding in vehicle tunnels. The fire severely damaged the motor control centers, including current transformers, cables, circuit breakers, buswork and the lighting system. Power to the station was lost.
Crawford Generating Station & Columbus Park Substation Fires
RTI conducted a major investigation of a generating station cable fire and a subsequent substation switchgear and transformer fire, which occurred within days of each other. The first fire interrupted service to 40,000 customers for up to 3 days, and the second fire left 25,000 of the same customers without service again, this time for up to 12 hours.
One Market Plaza Transformer Fire
A transformer which was located in a vault beneath the One Market Plaza Building in downtown San Francisco caught fire. The fire department could not fight the fire without the electricity in the building being shut off. During the time it took to cut off electricity to the building, the smoke and soot were distributed throughout lower sections of the building via the HVAC system. Allegations linking Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB's) to cancer caused the building to be sealed for an extended period of time until it could be cleaned sufficiently to meet local
Hinsdale Central Office Fire
A fire occurred in a major telephone switching station hub in the central United States. More than one-half million residential and business customers were affected by the fire, which was identified as one of the most serious fires in the history of the telephone industry.
SwissAir Flight 111
On September 2, 1998, a fire occurred one hour into the New York to Zurich flight, leading to an attempt to land at Halifax, without success. All souls were lost when the MD-11 plunged into the ocean off the shore of Peggy’s Cove.
A team of RTI aviation safety and fire specialists were instructed by the supplier of the In-Flight Entertainment System and worked with the Canadian TSB team through its investigation to the final official report.
Value Jet Flight 592
On May 11, 1996, ten minutes after takeoff, a fire was discovered in a cargo hold which rapidly disabled both aircraft and flight crew. All souls on board were lost in the Florida Everglades. An investigation ensued of the cargo contents, revealing improperly packed emergency oxygen generators.
RTI was instructed by the aircraft manufacturer to provide a team of experts to reconstruct the fire cause and loss of control of the aircraft.
Black Hills Aviation v United States
On September 10, 1987, a civilian aircraft crashed on the White Sands Missile Test Site in the mountainous Red Rio/Oscura area of New Mexico. The aircraft referred to as Tanker 07, owned by Black Hills Aviation, crashed while performing a contract air fire suppression support mission on the missile base. This area was also the testing site for the evaluation of the Army’s Line of Sight Forward Heavy Missile phase of the Forward Area Air Defense System [FAADS Project].
