President | Structural-Forensic Engineer



Doug Stephens’s entire life has been centered in the engineering and construction industry. The son of an architect and home builder, he spent his late teenage years working construction for his dad’s business. Once he entered college, he worked part time as a survey technician for a civil engineering firm. Doug’s surveying experience included performing topographic surveys, property boundary surveys, and construction layout and staking for buildings and roadways.

In 1997, Doug graduated from Iowa State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering. Since then, he has accumulated over 20 years of engineering, construction, and inspection-related experience. Doug’s first engineering position out of college was a staff engineer on a civil-design team for a multi-discipline engineering/architecture firm. Doug’s initial engineering experience included the layout and design of residential subdivisions, parking lots, sanitary and storm sewer systems, and waterways.

But Doug’s passion was building structures. And after one year of working in civil design, he moved into structural design of buildings and bridges. His structural design experience includes a wide range of commercial and residential building projects that includes sports facilities, commercial office buildings, restaurants, industrial and warehouse facilities, apartment complexes, and high-end custom homes. While working as a structural engineer, he pursued post-graduate studies in structural engineering from Kansas State University and North Carolina State University. In 2003, Doug passed the structural engineering exam to become a licensed professional engineer.

In 1999, Doug formed a residential home-building company and started with one spec house. By 2004, his company was constructing up to 25 single-family homes a year with a total gross sales of over $4.5 million. Doug was meticulous in every aspect of the home building process. He designed, engineered, and oversaw the day-to-day construction of every house.

While most builders in the area were leaving the quality of the construction up to their sub-contractors, Doug insisted on engaging with his sub-contractors to ensure that the quality was built into the house from the ground up. He learned early in his building career that the home inspections provided by the city inspectors were an insufficient quality control measure. Therefore, he inspected every part of the construction from beginning to end to ensure that his end product was the highest quality available in the industry.

In 2011, Doug began using his years of engineering and construction related experience in the field of forensic investigations. Doug has performed hundreds of forensic investigations related to storm-related damage of roofing and exterior cladding of buildings, water intrusion, structural damage and collapse, differential foundation movement, vehicle impacts, and construction defects.