As a Code Official, Mr. Gunderson came from the construction industry as a California B-1 General Contractor and began working in Code Enforcement in 1980 with the City of Upland, CA as a General Building Inspector. He was selected out of 1,000 applicants. Moving to the Midwest in the early 80’s Mr. Gunderson worked as a Construction Manager (CM) for various commercial construction firms in the Kansas City area. He ultimately settled his family in Tulsa in 1992 and procured a position with BSW International as a Building Code/Site Adapt Specialist because of his Building Code background. He performed plan review and site adapt studies for National clients such asWal-Mart, Pizza Hut, KFC, Longhorn Steakhouse, Home Depot and Boston Market. Performed site visits, prototype site adaptation, code analysis, civil coordination, permit expediting, contract administration, and prototype development. Worked in all three model building codes and interacted with jurisdictions across the country.
Upon leaving BSW in 1998 and a 2-year stint with Little & Associates Architects, serving a similar client base, Mr. Gunderson started performing Third Party Plan Reviews for Architects in the Tulsa area. At that time, built strong working relationships with Tulsa Development services professionals such as Grant Easterling, Yuen Ho, Joe Wiseman and the late Kurt Ackerman, as well as INCOG and Public Works. Also scheduled in occasional projects as a CM for cash flow purposes. Along the way, Mr. Gunderson tested and acquired his CBO certificate from CABO (now ICC) and CDT from CSI. Mr. Gunderson diversified his client-base to include Oklahoma Rural Water Districts, as a Construction Inspector, observing and documenting projects funded by loans and grants from OWRB, USDA Rural Development and ODEQ and continues to work on those projects. Continuing with Third Party Plan Reviews, developed relationships with the Town of Mounds, Town of Haskell, Town of Luther and is currently serving as Chief Building Official, pro tem for those jurisdictions, enabling them to become Authorities Having Jurisdictions (AHJ’s) so they are not depending on the Oklahoma State Fire Marshall’s office for inspections. In 2018, Mr. Gunderson served as a contract Senior Commercial Plans Examiner with the City of Tulsa Development Services, under the supervision of Yuen Ho, until January of 2019 when he assumed the position of Construction Administrator for MATRIX Architects on the City of Tulsa’s $60 million COX Business Center renovation, which is finishing up this Summer of 2020.
Mr. Gunderson is Managing Partner and Chief Operating Officer for Interstate Construction Administration Network, Inc. and oversees contract licensed inspectors to send to other jurisdictions needing help on long term and intermediate inspections. He has just finished a 2-month assignment himself with the City of Midwest City, OK covering inspections for one of their senior inspectors who was injured. That was a result of them reaching out to the Oklahoma Construction Industries Board (C.I.B.) for help. Mr. Gunderson has developed a strong working relationship with the C.I.B. He also supervises contract inspectors for the City of Bixby, OK.