Staff and Contacts

Don has been with SEL since 1988 and is now the President and a Senior Scientist. He leads the engineering analysis of fires and explosions, conducts testing and analysis of products and materials, oversees process safety projects and provides expert testimony.

Since 1986 when he founded SEL, John has investigated and analyzed hundreds of fires and explosions and has provided expert testimony throughout the United States, U.S. Territories and Canada. His investigations have ranged from incidents involving household products to major hotel fires and industrial plant explosions.

Erik is an Electrical Engineer and Certified Fire Investigator responsible for laboratory and on-site forensic failure analysis and examination of electrical systems, equipment, and devices. He also facilitates and conducts testing and analysis of electrical products and appliances to evaluate alleged failures. Erik has been with SEL since 2003.

Mike, a Materials Engineer and Certified Fire Investigator with SEL since 2006, provides fire and non-fire related failure analysis of metal and plastic components, supervises our library of analytical and testing equipment including FTIR and SEM-EDS, performs data acquisition during product and burn testing, and executes data analysis in large-scale projects. Mike is also trained and experienced in the use of fire models in incident analysis.

Ben has been part of SEL’s team since 2015. He assists in designing and performing fire and non-fire related failure analysis of a variety of systems and components, performs data acquisition during product and burn testing, and assists with the engineering analysis of fires and explosions and process safety projects.

John joined SEL in 2019 and provides expertise gained over an extensive career in metallurgical engineering including materials testing and development and forensic analysis of products and manufacturing processes. He performs engineering analysis of a wide variety of incident, applying his experience with product development and codes, standards and regulatory development.

Dave joined SEL in 2021 after a 36 year career in appliance design and safety. Dave is a Professional Engineer and Certified Fire and Explosion Investigator who conducts forensic analysis in both laboratory and scene investigations.  His expertise includes forensic engineering with an emphasis on electric and gas appliances, engineering analysis of fire cause, failure analysis of gas appliances and electrical equipment, and appliance design and safety.