Senior Principal and immediate past President, CEO and Board chair, with more than 35 years at Forell/Elsesser and almost 40 years in the industry, David’s strength is a holistic approach to a project’s planning, design and construction, and the collaborative integration of creative structural solutions with architects, engineers, and builders. With a specialty in designated historic structures, David has creatively solved numerous engineering challenges. Principle examples of his solutions include the base isolation retrofits for both the San Francisco City Hall and Asian Art Museum, the adaptive reuse and retrofit for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the seismic safety corrections and remodel of UC Berkeley’s California Memorial Stadium. The practicing structural engineer today must have a broad understanding of not just structural engineering, but must be knowledgeable about architecture, M/E/P systems, construction delivery methodologies, and the construction process. All projects come with their own litany of challenges and constraints, and the structural engineer is one of the key players in achieving the optimal solution: The project’s budget, the selected performance and design criteria, the architectural form, and the operating systems all affect the selection of the appropriate structural materials and lateral force resisting system. Then the analysis must get translated into a design, and the design must clearly and carefully be delineated into construction documents including plans, details, sections and technical specifications, with appropriate attention to sequencing, phasing and constructibility. This all gives rise to the notion of today’s structural engineer as a “Master Builder”, one who can articulate their way through a complex labyrinth of form finding, criteria setting, risk evaluation, design and documentation, and construction.