Robert E. Burke, PE, LEED AP

While attending the University of Texas, Bob Burke witnessed Austin’s emergence as a leader in the high tech industry, and he was determined to be a part of shaping that future. During his 26-year engineering career he has played a leading role in developing buildings which have had a significant impact on Austin and the surrounding area.

Bob received a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering from the University of Texas in 1984. He started his career with PageSoutherlandPage in 1988, and he was immediately integrated into the firm’s extensive healthcare engineering practice. Bob quickly assumed responsibility as lead mechanical engineer on hundreds of healthcare projects throughout the U.S. and overseas, including all of the firm’s military healthcare projects during the past 22 years. In 1991, PageSoutherlandPage was contracted to write the Military Medical and Dental Treatment Facility Design and Construction Handbook 1191 (currently UFC 4-510). Because of Bob’s extensive knowledge of medical gas system design, he was asked to author “The Medical Gas System Design Criteria” chapter for the Handbook.

Bob became the first in-house Fire Protection Engineer in 1992 and opened up this new field of practice for PageSoutherlandPage. He has served as building code consultant as well as the fire suppression and alarm engineer on numerous facilities, including the 1.6 million-square-foot Samsung Austin Fab, the 25-story Carr America Tower, large data centers and numerous hospital projects. He developed a Life Safety/Building Code Upgrade Report for the more than 1,000,000-square-foot Wilford Hall Hospital.

Bob’s leadership in developing creative engineering solutions and integrating them closely with the architecture of a building has contributed to the success of some of the most award-winning PageSoutherlandPage projects in Austin, such as the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport Terminal, the Austin Convention Center and expansion, Computer Sciences Corporation, Seton Medical Center and the AMLI II mixed-use high-rise residential project in Austin’s 2nd Street Retail District. His experience with these projects have led him to be a strong believer in the firm’s legacy and philosophy that providing engineering disciplines in-house offers a distinct advantage to clients.

In 2000, Bob was named Director of MEP Engineering for the Austin office. In addition to leading the engineering disciplines, he has been Project Director, Project Manager and Quality Assurance/Control Manager for all disciplines for a number of recent, prominent projects, including the Four Points Centre, the new Austin Federal Courthouse, the development of the entire 2nd Street retail district as well as numerous data centers and high tech facilities. In 2005 Bob was named Director of Operations for the Austin office and has overseen the delivery of all projects within that office. Through the extensive national and international work at PageSoutherlandPage, he has had a much larger geographical reach for projects such as the Dupont Photomask Plant in Gresham, Oregon; the Aviano AFB Hospital in Italy and the master plan for the Samsung Line 17 and 18 in Seoul, South Korea.

A LEED Accredited Professional, Bob is committed to working with clients to develop the best-value, sustainable solutions for their specific project. Throughout his career at PageSoutherlandPage, he has been involved in developing some of the firm’s most energy efficient and sustainable projects, including the Bob E. Johnson State Legislative Office Building, the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport Terminal, the Austin Convention Center and the recently completed LEED Gold Certified Four Points Centre.