A Year of Firsts

12/21/2017 (Permalink)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for your friends at SERVPRO of Spencer & Iowa Great Lakes.

This year has flown by for all of us at SERVPRO of Spencer and Iowa Great Lakes. It has been quite a learning process, but also a time to celebrate a lot of firsts!

Lathe and Ryan took ownership of the Spencer and Estherville franchises in November of 2016 and since then it’s been a whirlwind. They attended new franchise trainings, franchise management courses, and the SERVPRO Industries annual convention. Most importantly, they became certified through The Institute of Inspection Cleaning and Restoration Certification (IICRC) providing a higher level of competency in our field of business.  

Previous owner Doug Corcoran stayed with Lathe and Ryan for a full year after they purchased the business to help as they got their feet wet (pun intended) in new franchise ownership. Our staff was proud to celebrate with Doug as he retired this year and thanked him for the 40+ years he served Spencer and NW Iowa while building a highly successful business to invest in. Doug was able to celebrate a first as well, his first Thanksgiving not spent on-call!

Not long after we got through the “frozen pipe season,” a hurricane named Harvey made it’s way over Houston, Texas and left a wave of destruction in it’s path. Thanks to the foresight of Lathe and Ryan, they had purchased a commercial desiccant dehumidifier – one of the firsts in Iowa and we were able to take a crew and the new equipment to Houston to help in the clean-up.

In the meantime, they began to actively search for additional employees to help manage fire and water-loss projects and marketing of the additional services they were now able to provide. In August, they hired our first Sales Manager, Sue Loring. Shortly following, they hired our first Project Manager Chris Abram and lastly Marketing Manager Vanessa Moore. As business continued to increase, they began hiring more production crew members and we currently boast a payroll staff of over 15 full-time employees.

With the increase in business Lathe and Ryan found themselves able to provide full health, vision, dental benefits and retirement matching for their staff – a first for the local franchise.

But that wasn’t it for a year of firsts! Our crew was able to provide the Spencer Fire Department with a slew of Dalmatians to comfort children in auto and fire incidents. We were also able to provide a family in need with a smoke detector and fire extinguisher. (We hope to continue and expand these traditions in the upcoming years.)

And, earlier this month, we hosted our first continuing education event for area insurance professionals – with over 65 participants in attendance in December. And finally, we hosted our first After Hours event boasting 50+ in attendance.

As our year of firsts comes to an end, we wanted to write another first. A year of accomplishments, hard-work, tears and sweat, but also a perfect time to say thank you to all our new and returning customers, without you none of these firsts could have happened.

But most importantly, as our busy season is soon upon us, please consider donating locally to the Red Cross, or through another organization who helps families who have been made vulnerable by fire, water or storm damage.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!