A BKF principal and outdoor devotee, Dan says “I can think clearly, and do my best work, when I am riding my bike alone on the East Bay’s back roads.” In addition to mountain and road cycling, Dan also enjoys backpacking as a trained assistant scoutmaster and hike master for his teenage son’s Boy Scout troop.

He was hired as an entry level engineer shortly after graduation from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and since then, has worked in four different BKF offices. He now leads the staff Walnut Creek. Over the years, his operating method has mainly been based on service, “making sure that it’s not all about me, but empowering others, both staff and clients.”

One thing he appreciates about BKF’s culture is that there is a diversity of services and resources available to each team to accomplish a diversity of projects. Another is that, for our size, we have a flat organization structure which allows groups to make decision on the fly without “a lot of hoops to jump through,” he said.

Initially, in high school Dan considered architecture, but after looking through a course catalog, he found that the civil engineering classes were the most appealing to him. Plus, his dad’s love of archeology seemed to rub off on him and pair well with engineering. “I love that this profession is constantly about recycling, redeveloping, and reusing existing infrastructure,” he said. “We’re building a legacy within an environmental framework to preserve what was here in the first place.”