Engineer distances himself from Cowboys' facility that collapsed

DALLAS — An engineer said he had limited involvement with the Dallas Cowboys' training facility that collapsed during a thunderstorm leaving a man paralyzed, according to a newspaper report.

"I was there just a few months," said Enrique Tabak in an online story Tuesday for The Dallas Morning News. "They brought me in to build little farm buildings — sheds, agricultural applications."

Tabak formerly worked for the company — Summit Structures LLC of Allentown, Pa. — that the Cowboys hired in 2003 to build the indoor practice facility. He was listed as the engineer responsible for its design and that of a Philadelphia building that collapsed earlier that same year. A Pennsylvania court ruled in 2006 that Summit was negligent in the design and construction of the membrane-covered building.

Tabak is now employed by a different company in Canada.

Summit is a subsidiary of a Canadian firm called Cover-All Building Systems. Both of the collapses involved a Summit specialty: large buildings with lightweight steel frames, over which fabric is tightly wrapped. Cover-All previously was known primarily for building smaller agricultural buildings in that style.

Cowboys' spokesman Rich Dalrymple would not say Tuesday whether the team knew about the Philadelphia collapse when it hired Summit. He said his response to all questions related to the company would be a "blanket no comment.

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