A Step in Time Structural Engineering is lead by Raymond Gessner, P.E. There are several reasons why home owners contact Ray for their structural engineering problems. The first reason is the type of background Ray has in the field of civil engineering. Civil engineering students can specialize in a wide variety of study including transportation, environmental, geotechnical, structural, and construction management. Usually, most civil engineering students are required to only take one or two of these general courses and focus on their core study.
Ray graduated from Virginia Tech in Civil engineering with a focus on structural engineering. He continued in graduate school at O.D.U. and continued to focus on structural engineering and geotechnical engineering. This is where it gets interesting because geotechnical engineering deals with soils and the behavior of soil. Many home owners have foundation and soil settlement issues and call structural engineers to solve these problems. While Ray was in graduate school, he worked for structural engineering firms and geotechnical engineering firms including McPherson & Associates (structural), Liberty Engineering (structural), Froeling & Robertson (geotechnical), and Geo Design Consultants (geotechnical.)
Currently Ray focuses on residential structural engineering problems. This appears to be a niche specialty. Many structural engineers and even fewer with master degrees enjoy crawling under muddy crawl spaces to find out why a home owner’s bathroom is sinking. Ray like to say that he now has a reason why he does not wear a tie to work. Each day presents a new challenge and thus a new solution.
Raymond Gessner, P.E.
