WD Partners Hires Tom Ertler

WD Partners (Columbus, Ohio) has announced the hiring of Tom Ertler as director of environments design for the firm's Los Angeles office.

Ertler has been directing retail design projects with Miller Zell (Atlanta) for the past 10 years, directing national and international retail projects for Fortune 500 brands such as AutoNation, Blockbuster, BMW, Exxon, Office Depot, Saturn and Wal-Mart.

“Expanding the design group into the L.A. office shows our commitment to the West Coast market,” said ceo Chris Doerschlag. “The Denver and Dallas markets also are hotbeds for restaurant concept development right now, and we want to be located to help those companies address opportunities.”

WD Partners, a design, architecture and engineering firm, has been bolstering its retail practice over the past two years, headed by branding executive Lee Peterson. The 25-person design group has developed branded concepts for clients such as Carvel, Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q, Wendy's, Whataburger, Benihana, Galyan's and Logan's Roadhouse. It established an office in Atlanta last year to handle business in the southeast quadrant of the country.