Background

Alan Doyle is the founder and principal forensic construction cost analyst at Solaris Cost Forensics LLC, with over 30 years in the construction industry and more than two decades performing large-loss reconstruction cost analysis, quantum and damages evaluation, and litigation-supported cost opinions.

Solaris Cost Forensics LLC was built on more than three decades of hands-on construction experience applied through disciplined, independent forensic analysis. After years of field inspection work and the physical demands that come with it, I chose not to step away from the industry I had built a career in. Instead, I focused on the part of the work where my expertise delivers the greatest value: structured, independent cost forensics grounded in real constructability knowledge.

My background began in the trades, not the classroom, and that distinction informs every analysis I perform. I entered construction during a period of volatility in the oilfield, starting in residential work — installing baseboards, learning framing, finishes, and every component of a home from the ground up. That foundation expanded into multi-family and commercial construction, where I learned interior and exterior systems, roofing assemblies, wall systems, mechanical components, and the practical realities of how buildings are built, repaired, and maintained.

Over the years, I worked across a wide range of facilities: malls, hotels, restaurants, college and church campuses, equestrian centers, veterinary facilities, gyms, parks, libraries, office buildings, national hotel chains, school districts, and municipal portfolios throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. That field-level constructability experience is the backbone of how Solaris evaluates repair and rebuild scopes and costs today.

I estimated and managed post-loss commercial build-outs under severely compressed schedules while concurrently running large-loss consulting engagements — the execution side and the analytical side of the same work at once. On portfolio-scale losses I led multi-consultant teams across hundreds of structures, reconciling their inspection and estimating work into a single, defensible cost position. Holding both perspectives shaped how I read a scope, a schedule, and a cost record today.

Every engagement follows the same sequence: understand the damage, evaluate the repair or replacement approach proposed for it, verify the materials, labor, equipment, pricing, and logistics that approach depends on, and produce a clear, defensible written cost opinion.

In many engagements, this occurs alongside retained engineers; I have had the honor to collaborate directly with engineers to develop repair methodologies grounded in constructability, sequencing, and practical execution for over 25 years.

My core discipline traces back to my service in the United States Navy as an Aviation Structural Mechanic, where I worked on multi-million-dollar aircraft under exacting standards of precision and accountability. That standard remains the foundation of how I approach every engagement.

That experience is what Solaris brings to every engagement — not advocacy for a position, but a clear, documented account of what the numbers support, so the people responsible for the decision can make it with confidence.

Career Experience

Litigation and Expert Experience

Has provided forensic construction cost analysis supporting multiple litigation matters across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Florida, California, and the Gulf Coast — matters on which I was not always the primary analyst — including construction-defect matters requiring inspection, cost estimating, and written reporting, as well as hail/wind, large-loss property, and subrogation recovery disputes. Most matters proceeded on a consulting-expert basis; where litigation continued to deposition, has provided expert deposition testimony on multiple prior occasions, most recently more than four years ago. Available for consulting-expert engagements and, by separate written agreement, testifying-expert services.