Richard E. Tasker President Sage Associates, Inc., Newport Beach, CA Richard E. Tasker brings more than 35 years of experience and training to his work as a construction consultant. The son of a General Contractor and Developer, he has been involved in the fields of land planning, development, design, and construction throughout his life. He has been President and Owner of Sage Associates, Inc. since 1984.A native of Syracuse, New York, Mr. Tasker has a B.A. in Landscape Architecture from the State University of New York and a B.S. in Environmental Science from Syracuse University. After graduation he joined an Architecture/Engineering firm in the New York City area and began work on an MBA which he completed in 1978 from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. While working in New York, Mr. Tasker first began to provide consulting services to surety companies and REIT’s on troubled construction projects in the northeast, mid-Atlantic, and southern states. Thorough, practical, and client-focused services in the evaluation and resolution of troubled construction projects are the hallmark of Mr. Tasker’s career.In 1979, Mr. Tasker undertook a consulting assignment for expansion of the Urban Development Block Grant Program in Toledo, Ohio and, thereafter, relocated to Denver/Boulder, Colorado. After first working for a development firm, in 1982 he incorporated, Earthworks, Inc. Earthworks provided Land Planning, Entitlement and Permitting Services, Development Consultation, and Landscape Architecture services to private and public clients. Earthworks received several Best of the West awards for Development Master Planning and Land Planning/Landscape Architecture.While in Colorado, in addition to Earthworks Inc. and continuing work on Surety claims matters, Mr. Tasker also taught Design and Professional Practice courses at the University of Colorado, Graduate School of Design and Planning in Denver, and in the undergraduate program in Boulder. Mr. Tasker was also elected and served a term as the State Chapter President of the American Society of Landscape Architects and served on several national committees of ASLA in Washington D.C. He also married and became the proud father of two beautiful daughters.Mr. Tasker incorporated the firm now known as Sage Associates, Inc.1 and expanded to open a second office in Southern California in 1986. He closed Earthworks to concentrate solely on construction consulting in 1989 and relocated to California in 1991.Sage Associates remains a small firm and Mr. Tasker is very much a hands-on manager, spending the majority of his time on project assignments. He is personally active in all aspects of Sage’s work including Procurement and Selection of Project Delivery Method, Reconstructive Scheduling and Schedule Analysis, Job Cost Accounting, Financial Evaluations, Funds Disbursement and Administration, Calculation of Construction Damages and Labor Efficiencies, Contractor License Bond investigations, Construction Defect evaluations, and Construction Contract Administration. Sage’s clients include many of the nation’s Surety Companies, Public, Private, and Institutional Owners, Contractors and Subcontractors, Property and Casualty Insurers, Lenders, Architecture/Engineering firms and their Errors and Omissions insurers. Mr. Tasker is experienced in a broad spectrum of construction project types and in diverse locations, including, but not limited to, schools and universities, water and wastewater treatment plants, a gamut of horizontal and infrastructure projects, all types of residential and commercial development, dams, airports and railroad work, power generation, telecommunications, etc. In the immediate aftermath of the 1984 Northridge earthquake, at the request of several large Property/Casualty Insurance Companies, he assembled and managed a team that evaluated and generated damage reports, repair recommendations, and cost to complete calculations on over 2,000 properties. On behalf of Surety Companies he has personally investigated and assisted in the resolution of several hundred Surety Performance Bond claims in more 38 states. The total value of project procurement exceeds $1 Billion.Mr. Tasker has qualified and testified on numerous occasions in both Federal and State Court matters in California, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Jersey. He has also been actively involved in Professional Associations including the ABA Construction Forum and Surety and Fidelity sections, Surety Claims Institute, National Bond Claims Association, and Sage is a Charter Member of the Pearlman Association in Seattle. Mr. Tasker has been a presenter at many Construction and Surety industry events including the American General Contractors, American Subcontractors Association, National Association of Bond Producers, Northeast Surety Conference, Chicago Surety Claims Association, and Surety Claims Association of Los Angeles. He founded the Dana Point Surety Claims Conference as a gathering point for industry professionals in 1993, and Co-Founded the Western States Surety Conference in 1994 and speaks annually offering an overview on the state of the Construction and Surety Industries. Mr. Tasker was co-author of the first Edition of the John Wiley and Sons book “Practical Guide to Construction Contract Surety Claims.”In response to a growing need for fast and highly cost-effective means of resolving certain Performance Bond challenges, Mr. Tasker acquired majority ownership of a California “A” licensed General Contracting firm in early 2008, and the firm has completed more than $25 Million in construction since that time. Since 2007, Mr. Tasker has also been active with subdivision and infrastructure workouts throughout the West. In that time, Sage has assisted clients on more than 60 developments.[June 2011]