Meet Our Dynamic Team

Joe Starkey is a structural engineer with experience in structural assessment, commercial diving, NDE, and construction and design. He focuses on highway bridges, drainage, ancillary structures, and waterfront facility structures.

Joe has experience as a Bridge Inspection/Design Engineer for a DOT, where he managed the fracture critical and underwater bridge inspection programs and field crews, supervised ten engineering technicians and assisted the State Bridge Inspection Engineer with the supervision of five engineering assistants. He scheduled and coordinated statewide fracture critical bridge inspections, underwater bridge inspections, non-destructive testing of bridge pin and hanger connections and other critical details and use of the state’s bridge inspection cranes. He monitored the fracture critical and underwater bridge inspection databases for compliance with state and federal inspection frequency and data reporting requirements. He also provided hands-on service: performing routine, fracture critical, and underwater bridge inspections, primarily on “problem” or complex structures. Joe assisted Bridge Construction/Maintenance Engineers with condition surveys, load ratings and design for both state and local projects. He also has experience in DOT construction inspection surveying and assisting with managing the district’s bridge inspection contracts.

Joe has also served in the private sector as a Project Manager and Senior Engineer for bridge inspection projects for a DOT and other federal, state and local agencies. He performed bridge design, inspection and investigation duties. He also assisted forensic engineers in conducting testing, evaluation and design of repairs and rehabilitation for existing concrete, steel, masonry and timber structures. He performed non-destructive testing in support of forensic projects using Impact Echo, ultrasonic, liquid penetrant, and magnetic particle testing.

Joe established Rio Engineering in 2003 to focus his structural engineering expertise on inspection and bridge repair and rehabilitation. He served as President and Senior Project Manager on various projects with the Texas Department of Transportation, Port of Houston, Port of Corpus Christi, the Mississippi Department of Transportation, the USDA Forest Service and many other clients in Texas and the Southeastern United States. In October of 2021, Rio Engineering became part of the GBA family, and now Joe serves as the Texas Structural Inspection Leader and as a Senior Project Manager.