While serving as President of the Greater Salt Lake Home Builders Association and later as President of the Utah Home Builders Association and after many years of homebuilding, remodeling and commercial construction projects, Eugene Peterson would often be subpoenaed to testify as a fact witness in construction defect litigation cases as he was well respected and trusted builder and general contractor. At the time (late 1980’s) a fact witness, called to testify as a construction expert witness would receive a fee of $16.00 for each court appearance. Eugene became a court room fixture as he was called upon time and again to testify in construction litigation support. Although he enjoyed the experience, he was not anxious to be subpoenaed to testify for construction defects or construction defects cases, because it happened so often that it took him away from the construction business he owned and managed. He however found construction defect resolution to be intriguing and even fun. He taught at Iowa State University, where he obtained his Masters Degree, and he found the court room to be a fascinating teaching venue. He especially enjoyed helping people right the wrongs and evils involved in construction disputes. Yet, it was very, very time consuming and the $16 token fee paid for the court appearance did not compensate adequately for the time and energy spent. So, Eugene decided that if he was going to be a construction expert witness, he would need to make it worth his time and effort, so he started charging a professional fee for his services. To his surprise, charging an expert fee increased his credibility and his clientele and practice grew beyond understanding. At this point in time he expanded his part time practice, for he was running a multimillion dollar construction company too, to the areas of construction estimating, insurance dispute resolution as well as construction defect resolution.
At the time he owned a construction business that was in full bloom, building and remodeling homes, doing light commercial construction and specializing in insurance repair reconstruction and mitigation. During this business journey he earned many prestigious local, state and national awards. More importantly he established many cherished relationships all over the world. He loves meeting and helping people and with this seed an international consulting practice was born.
It only made sense that when he was confronted with life threatening cancer, a curveball that changed his life and personal business, he began focusing more time and energy in “getting a few good credits on the books, before checking out” by helping people improve their success rate in business by teaching, coaching and consulting in the venue of business principles, practices and procedures. He continued to make inroads with attorneys and added them to the contacts that he had made earlier with insurance companies and others while doing insurance related reconstruction and mitigation work. His unremitting desire to stand apart from other experts with unbiased findings simply added more cases to his work load. Advise & Consult, Inc. was formally organized in 2001 as he added other consultants from his network and it has continued to expand to what now includes 22 different expert consultants in 14 different states spanning all aspects of the construction industry, including specialization in large commercial construction to the smaller residential structures. Based on integrity, commitment and accountability, Eugene set out to form a company that can be proud of the work it provides. Each case is based on honest and complete testimony with the knowledge that if you know where you stand then you will be able to make the best decisions to defend or prosecute that case.
Advise & Consult specializes in helping attorneys, insurance companies, insurance adjusters, engineers, architects, general contractors, home owner associations, property managers and property owners through these services: expert witness testimony, arbitration, mediation, deposition, appraisal, insurance claims and insurance dispute resolution for commercial and residential construction. We have locations in Utah, California, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, Minnesota, Tennessee, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, New Jersey, Georgia, Michigan and Connecticut.