Construction Defect Expert Witness

John William Ortiz

John W. Ortiz is a licensed General Contractor in the states of California, Nevada and Arizona.

Mr. Ortiz graduated in 1978 with a degree in Architectural Engineering from the University of Colorado located in Boulder, Colorado.

After graduating from college, he was employed as a structural engineer by Bechtel Incorporated in San Francisco California.

He worked at Bechtel for six years. Mr. Ortiz worked on projects such as the Nuclear Power Plant located in Palos Verdes Arizona, an irrigation project in Algeria, the Riyadh International Airport in Saudi Arabia and many more.

During the last years of his tenure at Bechtel, Mr. Ortiz worked as a field engineer at the Chevron Refinery located in Richmond, California.

Bechtel was constructing a $240 million Lube Oil Plant for Chevron. His duties included the supervision and correction of work performed by various trades. Mr. Ortiz supervised and inspected the work performed by carpenters, underground process piping contractors, steel erectors, insulators, painters, pipe fitters, etc.

In addition to this hands-on work, Mr. Ortiz was in charge of performing change orders analyses and estimating, project monitoring, quantity surveys and daily progress reports.

After his tenure with Bechtel, Mr. Ortiz worked for a plumbing and HVAC contractor. He assisted in the preparation of daily bids for residential, commercial, industrial, school and medical projects. The analysis of change orders and subcontractor bids were additional duties performed by Mr. Ortiz.

During the last twenty years, Mr. Ortiz has prepared cost estimates for the legal community in construction defect litigation.

He is currently the President of Building Repairs & Associates, Inc. (BRA) formed in 1999.

As President of BRA Mr. Ortiz has prepared cost estimates in excess of $250 million and above $600 million during his career.

The cost-of-repair estimates were for projects located throughout California as well as in Nevada and Arizona.

These estimates are in the architectural, structural, plumbing, mechanical, civil, microbial remediation and geotechnical disciplines.

He has vast experience as an construction defect expert witness in depositions, mediations and court room testimony. He has been deposed at least seventy five (75) times, and has testified in four trials, two as a cost estimating expert.

Mr. Ortiz strongly believes that in order to be a successful consultant and get repeat business, one has to be aware of the needs of the clients.

When one is retained as a cost expert or consultant, the client must be provided the best product possible. Additionally, one has to go the extra step and do whatever is necessary to work with the client, keep him appraised, satisfy his or her requirements and meet the deadlines.

Not only does Mr. Ortiz have an Architectural Engineering background and almost thirty (30) years of experience (in the office and the field and as an independent consultant), but is also fluent in Spanish. This is extremely beneficial to clients located in the Southwestern United States.

Without a doubt, the construction defect field is partly, a service oriented business.