When you meet Robert (Bob) Shirer, you’ll see that he is an affable man with a firm handshake and a strong, even voice. And when the forensic engineer begins speaking about science, you know he means business. He clasps his hands together tightly and his blue eyes fix on his audience. “I’m confident enough to say I’m right, stand by it and do not break,” he says.
Bob’s lab is strewn with twisted mementos including a dented bicycle wheel — the woman riding that bike was killed by a car. While some might find this relic gruesome, Bob sees it as an “interesting piece of evidence.” The intellectual quest to figure out why bad things happen is foremost in Bob’s mind, and he doesn’t tend to get stressed out by gory details. “My dad gave me tough skin,” he says.
And that’s lucky, because his work involves investigating the root causes of catastrophes. He probes into falls, vehicle accidents, damage to buildings, product and equipment failures and causes of fire. He regards every case as a mystery to solve. “If the pieces of the puzzle are fit together in the right way, they will match what happened,” he says.
