Robin Franks, MS, PG, CHMM, RSO

Primary Areas of Expertise

Environmental & Indoor Air Quality

35+ yrs. diverse experience, education, credentials & licensing in geology, biology, remediation, & hazardous materials management. For the built environment, I hold multiple credentials in asbestos, lead, indoor air quality, industrial hygiene, mold & bioaerosols, sick buildings, vapor intrusion, OSHA worker & evaluation of operational compliance & occupant hazards. I lecture & teach for UT Systems, JLL, Wal-Mart, major lenders & underwriters.

I practice environmental & industrial hygiene at TGE Resources, Inc., (Houston, TX), the firm I founded 30+ years ago. I am routinely retained across my diverse field – over 70 times with near equal defense & plaintiff representation. I have large case experience, I’ve served in class action litigation, & public and private sector suits. I am an expert in environmental geoscience & hazardous materials releases & spills within the transportation, bulk fuel, lube, and chemical industries.

I plan remediation strategies, actively cleanup & oversee work (by others) at environmentally damaged property, prepare highly reliable loss estimates, & review/rebut similar work by others. I gather & review field data, utilize sophisticated equipment, provide damage models, & produce superior, understandable expert reports, often under compressed timeframes.

I bring decades of real estate due diligence capability & risk assessment knowledge for impaired property across industrial, commercial, & oil & gas settings. I have performed over 500 assessments of hydrocarbon bulk fuel terminals, oil and gas wellhead locations, pipeline corridors, mid-stream bulk plants, & retail facilities. I have been retained to evaluate developed and underutilized urban core real estate under “ready-for-reuse” programs that have involved extensively contaminated assets.

I routinely evaluate real property and inventory buildings for hazardous materials, abandoned contaminant sources, orphaned well sites & pits, and buried tanks & equipment. This work is routinely performed to advance real estate redevelopment, to cost-effectively demonstrate that the pathway of construction has been cleared for reuse, & for litigation when hazards are found during or post-construction.

As a certified first responder, I execute post-flood/fire emergency tasks in buildings & industry, which involve hazardous materials & chemicals, asbestos, PCBs, lead, microbial damage, pesticides, hydrocarbon, & solvents. I am credentialed to identify the extent of mold & microbial damage, source its cause of loss, & prepare mold protocols for its remediation under forensic methods of investigation & building construction defect.

I have expertise in building systems & the mitigation of hazards in advance of renovation or demolition. Pathway of disturbance work involves asbestos abatement consulting, lead-based paint removal management, & regulated (hazardous) materials inventory for its removal from high-profile airports, hospitals, & public-use facilities. I prepare, implement, rebut, & critically review specifications, remediation protocols, lead specifications, & remediation soil management plans, whether for litigation or industry.

I have evaluated diverse workplaces following loss reports due to safety and public health concerns & have offered mitigation strategies for worker safety under OSHA violation, including wrongful death claims & non-compliance-related exposures. I have served as an expert for multiple worker injury and wrongful death suits within the context of environmental exposure.

I have jury & bench trial experience & have prevailed under challenges involving real estate damage allegations & cost estimating. My expert reports, which typically involve highly technical subject matter, have been called “readable”, “easy to understand” and “straightforward”. I will consider the review of expert reports prepared by others, I will support your needs in preparation for trial, mediation, arbitration, or for general consult.

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