January 2, 2024

Greetings! Exactly 35 years ago today AllWest opened for business in the bosom of structural engineer Peter Culley and Associates in San Francisco, CA. I had developed a relationship with one of the Culley principals during my Certified Engineering days and pitched them on the idea of opening a firm that provided both environmental and seismic assessments in the context of real estate transactions. With a capital base of $5000 and Culley’s bank line of credit, we incorporated with the California Secretary of State on December 18, 1989, and opened for business two weeks later. Yes, 1989, the year I turned 30, the year the Internet and Taylor Swift were born. In 1989 Nintendo released the Game Boy, the Loma Prieta Earthquake rocked the World Series, the Berlin Wall fell and the first Simpsons episode aired. It was also the year I got married and welcomed my son Alexander into the world. As Zorba the Greek once stated- 1989 was “The Whole Catastrophe"!

Fast forward to 2024 and it’s been a professional career I’m proud of. See the New & Notable section of this website for a glimpse of my adventures. We’ve resisted professional service commoditization and tried to take the high road navigating through 5 recessions, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, gnarly capital insurrections, earthquakes, floods and deeply personal tragedies of family deaths of my wife and son Alexander. I’m ecstatic to announce I’m finally joining a “good club” as I’ll be a grandfather in June of this year. I hear it’s a blast! Thank you Oliver.

2023 was a difficult year for AllWest. Many times it felt like being back in the throes of Covid. RFPs were scant, reflecting a very deep recession in the real estate sector. No soft landing in SF as the Fed was working against the economy this time around. At one point we did not complete a Phase I assessment for 3 months. Just brutal. I wondered why I was even coming to the office. Friends, that is a recession. Excruciating. My prediction is 2024 will be better, much better especially after the first quarter.

Thank you for visiting our website. AllWest assists our clients understand and manage their potential environmental and building related liabilities and effectively advocates their interests through the discovery and mitigation process. Those strengths and a 34-year operating history distinguishes AllWest from competing firms. I’d like to thank our consulting partners at Calvada, SGH, MCA, & VDA. These firms help round out our professional staff on our most complex projects and bring their talents to bear over and over again.

AllWest provides expertise primarily to those with equity interests in commercial real estate. When you retain AllWest expect “best of class” in physical due diligence reports. Expect phone calls to be returned the same day. Expect answers to your questions on the first phone call. Expect well written, in-depth reports. Expect what you have been missing from commodity due diligence providers. Your transaction and team deserve it.

AllWest's combined staff is composed of licensed/registered professionals in Engineering, Architecture and Environmental disciplines. In an industry dominated by alphabet acronym service providers AllWest's competitive advantage is engaging licensed professionals to conduct all our assessments. Many firms in the physical due diligence field consider it a business. At AllWest we consider it a profession.

We provide expert guidance and advice to our clients in the following areas: