Matt Barnard is a Senior Principal with Degenkolb Engineers and serves as the firm’s Healthcare Practice Area Leader and as the Orange County Office Director. With over 24 years of experience, Matt has delivered structural engineering services from the largest new hospital projects to seismic retrofits of historic buildings to small renovations for a tenant improvement. He is currently the structural engineer of record for both the new University of California Irvine Medical Complex – Irvine and Harbor UCLA’s new Replacement Hospital in Torrance. Matt complements his engineering with active involvement in the industry. He was the 2015 ACE Mentoring National Mentor of the Year and was the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California’s President for 2020/2021. He is also a member of the Council of American Structural Engineers National Guidelines Committee.
Chad Closs is a Principal with Degenkolb Engineers and serves as the San Diego Office Director. Chad has nearly 17 years of experience, all with Degenkolb Engineers in their San Diego office, after attending the University of California San Diego where he obtained both his BS and MS in Structural Engineering. His professional focus has been in the healthcare and science and technology markets, mainly in new design, and is the current structural engineer of record of the San Diego County Public Health Laboratory. Chad has been active is professional activities and was the Structural Engineers Association of San Diego President from 2022-2023. He is currently the co-Chair of the 2025 Structural Engineers Association of California annual convention which will be held in September later this year here in San Diego.
We are constantly faced with opportunities to make decisions both small and big. Many of these decisions are easy and you make them without hesitation. But there are some decisions that are difficult with no clear right answer and with potentially massive implications for you and others. Fortunately, you can use a Choosing by Advantage process to help you identify what really matters and make those tough decisions. Together we will explore how to leverage this process by applying it to a couple of case studies; the selection of a foundation system and selecting which job offer to accept.