Tyler Ortego
Tyler Ortego is a coastal engineer and avid entrepreneur with a passion for commercializing promising technologies in the public sector arena. Mr. Ortego uses his prior experience as a water resources engineering consultant to identify opportunities, navigate red tape and get proprietary products specified into public sector contracts. Not just a salesman, Mr. Ortego has implemented engineering testing protocols required to get products approved for agency use. Mr. Ortego is one of the inventors of the OysterBreak and OysterKrete technologies and managing partner of ORA Technologies. Mr. Ortego is a graduate of Louisiana State University with both a B.S. and M.S. in Biological Engineering. Mr. Ortego’s academic training focused on biological processes, wetland science and coastal engineering. His research focused on oyster growth and mechanical properties of biologically enhanced concrete for use in shoreline protection structures. Mr. Ortego started his career at a consulting firm in Baton Rouge, LA supporting subdivisions and commercial development. He then moved on to Houma LA, where he worked on several large wetland restoration, flood protection and related mitigation projects. Mr. Ortego has experience in all stages of implementing large scale, high profile, and sometimes controversial, coastal protection and restoration projects. Key projects at sister company ORA Estuaries include large scale oyster sampling, living shorelines design, and assessment of ecosystem functions of natural reefs. Mr. Ortego is also certified as an oyster biologist with the Louisiana Oyster Lease Damage Evaluation Board.
Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell is an accomplished senior coastal engineer and inventor with a proven track record of technology commercialization, innovative approaches to challenging coastal projects, highly technical expertise, and practical solutions. Mr. Campbell is well respected throughout the coastal engineering community for his integrity, work ethic, innovative approaches, and professionalism. Mr. Campbell thrives in multidisciplinary teams including engineers, biologist, ecologist, architects, planners, and economist.
Mr. Campbell is the founder of ORA Technologies, which develops innovative coastal technologies that work in concert with marine ecology. He has patented multiple technologies for comericialization, negotiated license agreements with manufacturers, and recruited key members to continue technology development and implementation. Mr. Campbell developed a proposal for a $2 million large scale demonstration project with NOAA and the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority for the Oysterbreak technology, which was constructed in February 2012 and proved the successful implementation of the technology to the public. Since then it has been considered in numerous large scale projects.
Mr. Campbell’s vast experience with coastal projects worldwide includes habitat development, marsh creation, dune restoration, breakwater and groin design, beach nourishment, river diversions, inlet stability, vessel impacts, living shoreline, bioengineering strategies, and nature/natural-based solutions. His coastal processes modeling and analysis capabilities allow for rapid development of technologies including wave transformation, wave-structure interaction, tide and wind driven currents, salinity, sediment transport, vessel hydrodynamics, inlet stability, storm induced beach/marsh erosion, shoreline migration, and beach profile analysis.
Mr. Campbell has a proven track record of innovation and integration of traditional coastal engineering principles with biological and ecological processes. His career has encompassed characterizing and implementing marine ecological processes with engineering principals. His work has been published in peer reviewed journals, international conferences, and book contributions. Mr. Campbell continues to drive the state-of-the art in this area of expertise.