About
An independent licensed practice.
One licensed engineer. Real focus on the residential and light commercial work that drives most of northern Utah's permits. No junior staff handoff, no sales department.
Licensed Utah professional engineer with 15+ years of experience designing bridges, residential structures, and light commercial buildings. Based in Farmington and serving the Wasatch Front from Bountiful to Brigham City.
Porter Engineering exists for the residential and small commercial projects that the big multi-state firms don't really want to take. The math at a 70-engineer shop is brutal: a $600 load-bearing wall letter doesn't pay for anyone's pipeline meeting, so it ends up on a junior engineer's desk on the third try. We're the alternative. You hire us, you get a senior licensed PE on your project from start to stamp.
What we focus on
Residential structural engineering — additions, ADUs, decks, foundations, retaining walls, basement remodels, and the engineer letters that make those projects pass plan check. Light commercial — tenant improvements, mezzanines, change-of-use, and small structures. And, for clients who need it, the public infrastructure work (bridges, load ratings, NBIS inspection) that grew out of our long career.
What we don't do
Large multi-building developments, complex commercial steel, projects outside Utah, anything we wouldn't be proud to put our stamp on. Saying no is part of doing good work, and we'd rather refer you to the right firm than take on a project we're not the right fit for.
Why "side-business" isn't the dirty word people think
We'll be straight: this is a focused independent practice alongside an engineering day job. We think that's a feature, not a bug. It means we don't have to chase high-volume work to keep the lights on. We can take exactly the projects we want to take, give them the attention they need, and turn them around quickly because we're not buried under a 200-job backlog. Many of the best engineers in the country have followed this model for decades.
The practical stuff
We respond to inquiries within hours, usually the same business day. We give a fixed fee up front. We don't bill hourly for plan-check responses — that's part of the job. We deliver clean PDFs and wet-stamp on request. We work across Davis, Weber, Box Elder, and Morgan counties from our Syracuse office.
Section Next step
Have a project? Let's talk through it.
Send a few sentences about what you're building and we'll come back with a fee, scope, and timeline — usually the same day.