2019 Construction & Engineering Awards

BUILD 2019 Construction & Engineering Awards 118 James Cohen Consulting: Leading Specialist in Forensic Engineering - North East USA Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of its Founder and Namesake, James Cohen Consulting provides award-winning forensic engineering support, oversight and service. We profile the firm and James himself to learn more. or more than 40 years James Cohen has been supporting some of the largest and most revered companies throughout the construction and engineering market, providing them with forensic engineering support and expert witness testimony. Throughout his diverse career James has worked across a variety of sectors and practice areas, including disaster response and mitigation, failure analysis, natural hazard mitigation and response, dynamics, advanced analysis techniques, and instrumentation. Among other projects, he has been involved with demolition; collapse investigation; building damage due to various causes; building and tunnel leak mitigation; vibration and fatigue testing; cable design; blast analysis, existing facilities; cranes; towers; scaffolding; and dynamic and impact analysis. Among the companies he has worked with include Thornton Tomasetti, Arup and Wiss, Janney, Elstner. He was also previously an Adjunct Professor at Manhattan College, New York. During this role he taught a graduate level class on forensic engineering “ Introduction to Engineering Investigations .” This work allowed James to share his knowledge and expertise with a wide range of industry peers and up-and-coming engineers and experts. He was able to mould them and ensure that they provided the expertise their future clients and collaborators required. In March of 2018 James decided to go one step further and use his extensive industry expertise to establish his own company, James Cohen Consulting, to provide the benefits of his knowledge to a range of clients. Through this latest venture, James helps clients to develop, manage and handle building pathology, including forensic engineering, both post and pre claim, engineering investigation and repair, as well as building related insurance claim investigations. His services also include emergency response, hazard mitigation, due diligence and expert requests, domestically and F overseas, including expert testimony. By providing such an array of solutions James is able to use his experience to the full and offer his clients the services they need but do not have the expertise to handle in-house. As a first responder with the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Urban Search and Rescue Teams, James provided his expertise in the wake of national disasters, including the 9/11 terrorist attack. Looking ahead, James has big plans to drive James Cohen Consulting to even greater heights, through alternate dispute resolution, such as DRB’s, Owner’s representation and international assistance in mitigation and resolution of construction defect claims. Further development of his website, which is currently under construction, will allow him to showcase the benefits of his knowledge and expertise to an even wider array of clients in the future. Company: James Cohen Consulting Contact: James Cohen Website: www.jcconsultingengineers.com