2018 40 Under 40: Jacob Epstein, PE; 36

By Jack Smith, Content Manager; Amara Rozgus, Editor-in-Chief May 14, 2018

Senior Fire Protection Engineer, JENSEN HUGHES, Phoenix

BS mechanical engineering, Arizona State University
MS fire protection engineering, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Epstein is a senior fire protection engineer and team leader of JENSEN HUGHES’ Phoenix office with more than 12 years of experience. He first joined the firm in 2010 as an associate consultant and was promoted to a senior position in 2014. In 2017, he was promoted to team leader, where he is responsible for the work product and management of several associate-level engineers. Before joining JENSEN HUGHES, he worked for Cherokee Fire Protection in Phoenix; NAVAIR, Patuxent River, Md.; and Honeywell Aerospace, Tempe, Ariz. Epstein’s role as team leader in the Phoenix office is to manage the workload and deliverable quality of the associate-level engineers. As the team leader for several associates, he is always available to review any question and provide a thought-provoking question in return, which helps guide his colleagues in the right direction. He is sought after for many technical challenges. His expertise is not limited to where he started in the industry (fire sprinkler design) but reaches to all aspects of fire protection engineering—including smoke-control systems, dust-explosion hazards, building code analysis, and CFD fire modeling. Epstein and his family have made an annual tradition out of the Team Bradley Bear 5k, a run/walk held in memory of a local toddler who passed away from a rare brain tumor. He also helped those affected by Parkinson’s disease as part of the Baehr Challenge. Epstein is active outside of work with his wife and three small children, always eager to attend soccer games, dance classes, or walks to the park. In his free time, of which there is very little these days, he enjoys restoring his classic BMW and plays ice hockey once a week.

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