OWENS - Key Persons
Since 2001, Matt has worked in the construction quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) arena. This began in Southern Utah as a part-time high school job testing concrete, asphalt, and soil for Landmark Testing and Engineering. This progressed to a full-time field technician position performing concrete, soil, and asphalt tests at hundreds of different construction sites. These positions helped Matt learn the industry from the ground up and understand the value that timely and accurate QA/QC brings to a client and their projects.
Matt later shifted his focus to structural and life safety special inspections, earning numerous certifications in reinforced and post-tensioned concrete, structural steel and welding, structural masonry, commercial buildings, fireproofing, firestopping, soils, and more through organizations such as the International Code Council (ICC), American Welding Society (AWS), American Concrete Institute (ACI), and International Firestop Council (IFC).
After taking a management position with STRATA, Inc. in Northern Idaho/Eastern Washington, Matt developed a passion for understanding and serving clients' QA/QC needs and helping make their projects as successful as possible. This core value helped their team grow and expand for many years throughout the Inland Northwest before eventually leaving to form OCI.
In 2016, Owens Consulting and Inspection (OCI) was founded in Northern Utah with the purpose of providing top tier specialized QA/QC consulting to construction clients throughout the country. Since then, OCI has worked on a wide array of projects throughout Utah, Nevada, Idaho, and Washington, even partnering with SI Certs (www.sicerts.com) to create their training courses for aspiring construction inspectors throughout the world.
Today, Matt focuses on growing OCI and partnering with clients on mega projects that face accelerated timelines, tight specifications, and complex plans.
Russ began his QA/QC career in Northern Utah during the mid-2000's working for PSI. This started with field testing on soil, asphalt, and concrete, then progressed into special inspections as Russ became certified to inspect reinforced concrete, structural masonry, fireproofing, and structural steel.
These certifications enabled Russ to work on a variety of projects throughout Utah and the surrounding areas, including the landmark $1.5B City Creek project in downtown Salt Lake City. His experience, code expertise, and professional communication has helped hundreds of clients successfully complete their projects in accordance with code and specification requirements.
In 2020, Russ joined Lonestar Builders and became a project superintendent for several commercial projects throughout the state. This experience as a contractor allows Russ to provide next-level consulting to OCI's clients as he understands the challenges a contractor faces as well as the expectations from the owner's inspection agency.
Russ joined OCI in 2022 and is currently providing QA/QC consulting to the general contractor at the $4.5B SLC International Airport Reconstruction project. With an accelerated schedule, Russ' skillset helps the contractor and their team efficiently meet project specifications in order to open various phases of the new airport to the public as quickly as possible.