Director Charles Besjak is in charge of structural engineering for SOM's New York office. For the past decade, his primary focus has been the expansion of the firm’s high-quality structural engineering practice both domestically and abroad. Besjak is a licensed structural and professional engineer as well as a licensed architect who brings more than 20 years of design and construction experience to a vast array of domestic and international projects.

Besjak’s unique combination of structural engineering insight and creative natural design abilities serves as a cohesive force that fosters an integrated design approach with SOM projects. His portfolio of more than 95 structures includes some of SOM’s tallest buildings, such as the 510-meter Busan Lotte Town Tower in Busan, South Korea; the 450-meter Zifeng Tower in Nanjing, China; the 530-meter Pertamina Energy Tower in Jakarta, Indonesia; and the Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou, China. Other notable structures include the U.S. Air Force Academy Center for Character & Leadership Development in Colorado Springs, Colorado; Chhatrapati Shivaji International Terminal in Mumbai, India; and the King Abdullah Financial District Conference Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Working in close collaboration with multidisciplinary teams, Besjak has developed a wide range of innovative structural systems for laboratories, airports, hospitals, corporate office buildings, government buildings, and residential centers. These systems have also been implemented into his extensive work on the Kuwait University Athletic Facilities, King Abdullah Financial District Center, Memorial Sloan – Kettering Mortimer B. Zuckerman Research Center, Raspberry Island – Schubert Club Band Shell, General Motors Renaissance Center Entrance Pavilion, and Changi International Airport Terminal 3.

Besjak previously served on the organizing committee for IABSE Congress on Creating and Renewing Urban Structures in Chicago, and he lectures frequently on a wide range of topics, including state-of-the-art tall building design, high-rise design in seismic zones, cable-net structures, and unique composite structural systems for high-rise buildings.