OAKLAND, CALIF. — International engineering firm Thornton Tomasetti announced that D. William Otey has joined the firm’s Oakland office as vice president in the building performance practice. He also will aid in the further development of Thornton Tomasetti’s property loss consulting work in the Bay Area.

Otey is a licensed architect in California and has National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) certification. He currently is working with a group of architects, structural engineers, and MEP consultants in St. Louis providing damage assessment at the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, which was stricken by a tornado on April 22.

Otey brings more than 30 years of experience in architecture, construction, forensics, and engineering consulting to Thornton Tomasetti. For the last 15 years, he has specialized in forensic architecture. Having testified in many cases involving construction defects, he is qualified as an expert witness in the California Superior Court.

Prior to joining Thornton Tomasetti, Otey was an independent consultant specializing in construction forensics. He also was the owner of a multidisciplinary firm, Building Forensis.

Upon graduation from the University of California Santa Barbara, where he received a Bachelor of the Arts in biology, Otey went on to study engineering at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He also holds a master’s degree in architecture from the University of California, Los Angeles.