Ron worked his way through undergraduate architecture school from 1977-1981 at Iowa State as a part-time estimator and project manager for Hoffman Construction in Ames, IA. The take-off method of estimating, assigning unit material and labor costs to the quantities of items involved with a project, he was trained to use there has been brought forward through the years. This technique has consistently provided reliable estimates of probable construction cost that clients can use to plan with confidence.
Ron worked full-time during graduate school in structural engineering at Iowa State for Rietz Engineering Consultants in Ames, IA. A combination of engineering consultations and full-service design projects; from preliminary design through final design, bidding, construction administration, and project close-out; provided him with a broad background and the ability to test for his license as a Professional Engineer (PE) upon graduation.
Ron began working with larger commercial and institutional structural projects with Brooks, Borg, and Skiles in Des Moines in the late 1980’s, where he also dabbled in some small architectural projects. He then moved to Iowa City where he worked as a staff engineer and then project engineer for Hansen Lind Meyer. At HLM he worked on major hospital projects across the country, most notably the John Pappajohn Pavilion top-out at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
In 1991 Ron joined IIW Engineers & Surveyors, P.C. in Dubuque , IA where he continued to practice structural engineering on significant hospital projects in Mason City, IA; Clinton, IA; Hampton, IA; and Osage, IA. First licensed as an architect in 1991, Ron’s practice began transitioning away from structural consulting to architects and towards full service design. In 1995 he joined the firm’s Board of Directors and took on the responsibilities of Vice President of Finance and corporate Treasurer. Ron was the Structural Engineer of Record for the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque that opened in 2003. His innovative mat foundation, providing basement spaces for facility support services and eliminating the need for costly deep foundations, brought the project budget within reach for the owner and allowed it to move ahead.
In the mid-1990’s Ron began responding to periodic requests from local insurance claims adjusters to investigate a wide variety of structural and building envelope failures to determine causation for insurance coverage. Over the years this has developed into a larger and larger segment of his practice, including providing expert witness services to attorneys and consultations to public and private owners.
In the spring of 2008 Ron was asked to investigate several insurance claims arising from the Parkersburg, IA tornado, a major event that devastated a significant portion of the community. In the course of those investigations the behavior of tornados, and the response of structures to them, began to develop as an area of significant interest. However, it wasn’t until a few days after the 2013 Moore, OK EF5 tornado event, when a NOAA tornado illustration appeared in the local newspaper, that the concept of a tornado as an escaping stream of warm air, trapped by a cold rain curtain miles ahead of the storm front, began to develop. Ron researched numerous tornado events through the NCDC severe storms database and radar records to verify the hypothesis, and found a significant body of supporting evidence. He established exvorte in 2013 principally to pursue recognition of this tornadogenesis hypothesis and perform engineering research and development into tornado prevention strategies.
Ron left IIW in 2015 to focus on his forensic practice and continue researching tornadogenesis and tornado prevention via exvorte. He maintains a cooperative relationship with IIW to their mutual benefit when complementary knowledge and experience can provide value to their clients.