"Selecting a Seismic Engineer," by Kylie Wroblaski, BUILDINGS magazine, April 2010
When retaining structural engineers for upgrades, be certain that they're experienced in doing upgrades as opposed to designing new buildings. "It's a very different area of practice," says Ronald Hamburger, senior principal at Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. "Every structural engineer is taught to know how to design in accordance with building code. Designing a seismic upgrade is a specialty practice, and not every structural engineer is going to be good at designing upgrades."