About Us
Meet The Founder
Rick Van Bruggen - PE, D.WRE. PH, CFM
The Company President and Principal Testifying Expert, Mr. Rick Van Bruggen, has over 40 years of engineering experience specializing in the use of systems engineering and modeling techniques to define and evaluate water resource systems and alternatives. He is licensed as a Registered Civil Engineer and has both B.S. and M.S. degrees from UCLA in Water Resources Engineering.
Rick is an internationally recognized Expert Witness Hydrologist. He is a Diplomate Water Resources Engineer (D.WRE), a certified Professional Hydrologist (PH), and a Certified Floodplain Manager (CFM)
He has 35 years of expert witness experience in the field of Water Resources Engineering, having testified in over 30 trials and given well more than 100 depositions. He offers expert opinions in many fields of expertise related to Surface Water Resources Engineering in cases ranging from the Standard of Care for the design of storm drain systems and the operation of reservoir systems, to the forensic re-creation of storm and flood events, to the hydraulic factors leading to a wrongful death by vehicular accident or drowning.
He has performed hydraulic environmental impact analyses, redefined floodplains and developed storm drain master plans. If the project concerns surface water resources engineering, he likely has the capabilities.
Over 40 Years of Water Hydrology Engineering & Litigation Support
Or call us: (760) 895-4411
Our Team
WRCS Associate Hydrology Experts
We have a team of associate expert engineers with diversified project experience in many niche water resources engineering specialty areas. Our associate experts are available to assist Mr. Van Bruggen in his regular casework, or even provide expert testimony of their own, if called upon, in cases that are "right up their alley."
Tonja Koob-Marking
PhD, PE, D.WRE, DFE, PMP, MBA, CFM, LEED AP
Tonja is a licensed civil engineer with over 20 years experience in water resources engineering. She has expertise in river hydraulics, urban drainage, riverine ecosystems, coastal and estuarine restoration, water quality, environmental restoration, and environmental site assessment projects. With two Doctorates (Civil Engineering and Philosophy), and four Masters degrees, Tonja has taught a number of graduate and undergraduate courses in engineering at Tulane University, received numerous honors and awards, including Outstanding Civil Engineer for ASCE's Louisiana Section and New Orleans Branch (2019).
Tonja has considerable experience as an Expert Witness, having written multiple expert witness reports on the subjects of river hydraulics, wetland hydrology, historical environmental site assessments, forensic hydrology and hydraulics, family histories, and surface water contaminant transport. She has testified five times in court and has given numerous depositions.
Chad Ballard
PE, CFM
Chad is a licensed civil engineer working in the water resources field, more specifically hydrology and hydraulics specializing in advanced hydraulic and hydrologic modeling, stormwater, and flood mitigation. Chad has obtained experience using a variety of engineering software and tools applied to numerous planning and design projects.
In addition to a broad range of engineering skills, Chad has helped hundreds of engineering firms all around the world apply hydraulic models to their projects.
Chad has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses in hydraulics and hydrology as an adjunct faculty member, as well as currently teaching professional continuing education courses for the new 2D numerical modeling tools such as HEC-RAS and SRH-2D.