LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Zoe Freeman, Signal Restoration Services
Zoe Freeman, a Regional Account Manager for Signal Restoration Services, was the guest on this episode of Workplace MVP LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022. Signal was not an exhibitor but a sponsor of this year’s event. Zoe discussed Signal’s 50th anniversary, the work they do, highlighted the need for pre-loss planning, and more.
Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.
This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.
Signal Restoration Services
Signal Restoration Services is a leading disaster restoration contractor. They specialize in fire, water, storm, mold, hurricane, earthquake, emergency, and reconstruction services as well as full-service roofing and Cap Ex work. Their success has been achieved through high-quality standards, solid business ethics, and prompt response to their customers’ needs.
Their most significant advantage is their people. Thoroughly screened, trained, and certified, Signal’s employees comply with OSHA standards. They also regularly receive re-certification training on safe work procedures and hazardous materials handling.
The highly trained Signal representatives have been instrumental in the success of Signal’s customer service record. Their licensed personnel have the experience, expertise, and resources to complete your project in a timely and professional manner.
Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter
Zoe Freeman, Regional Account Manager, Signal Restoration Services
About Workplace MVP
Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.
Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann
In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.
R3 Continuum
R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.
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TRANSCRIPT
Intro: [00:00:03] Broadcasting live from Riskworld 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:22] Hi, everyone. Your host, Jamie Gassman, here coming to you again from the Riskworld 2022 Expo Hall, and I’m in our sponsor, R3 Continuum’s, Booth. And with me is Zoe Freeman from Signal Restoration. Welcome to the show, Zoe.
Zoe Freeman: [00:00:38] Thanks, Jamie. Thanks for having me.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:41] Yeah. And so, tell us a little bit about what Signal Restoration does.
Zoe Freeman: [00:00:45] So, Signal Restoration is a national catastrophe and large loss company celebrating our 50th year anniversary. There’s a banner when you walk in from the front entrance, it’s right there. We’re very proud of that. We have been around since ’72, and in 2009, restoration was introduced, too. It started out as a general contractor company, and then it was purchased in 2009 from the current owners, and they soon added restoration services, and made it into a commercial large loss and catastrophe company.
Zoe Freeman: [00:01:29] And in 2015, we added to that network by adding on a franchise corporation called PuroClean, which, in itself, is very successful, but they add to the huge Signal network as additional resources for the more routine losses that our clients so often see. And then, additionally on that, about a year-and-a-half ago, the purchase of US Roofing came. So, it’s a three-part synergy, and we handle restoration projects of flood fire, any natural disaster, as well as remediation services. So, for mold, and asbestos, and lead, and just about anything else in Hazmat, we try to support if we can.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:21] Wow. So, typically, with your client, if somebody is coming to you for support, what does that experience look like for them?
Zoe Freeman: [00:02:33] Well, typically, if it comes—so it’s always nice to have a relation—usually, there’s a relationship already built before any type of loss or something comes through to us. Sometimes, there’s not. And maybe the insurance company may know us well, and they ask us to step in to help out one of their clients or something like that. And so, the relationship, there is always some type of relationship there. If it’s a catastrophe situation, it’s pretty intense. There’s a lot of mobilization. There’s a lot of things working behind the scenes.
Zoe Freeman: [00:03:17] So, it’s actually pretty intense when we have to step in to any situation. And then, we also have our very friendly we’re here to help the community situations as well that are not so intense. And that’s if a client has like a small flood, or a large pipe break, or something, which you don’t think it does, but it actually ends up causing quite a bit of damage, so the sooner and the faster, more efficient we can get in there makes things much easier on everyone, saves time, gets the business back going, and it really ends up being a great thing. So, there’s good and bad with our company, but it’s all good in the outcome, right? But when you ask the question, I think of disaster first, right?
Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:14] Right.
Zoe Freeman: [00:04:14] So, a lot of times, that’s when we get called in. But a lot of times, it’s not. A lot of timea, we get called in on the more routine losses, and those are fun, too.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:21] Yeah. So, it’s almost like you kind of have a mix of like it’s hurricane season, you’re going to be called in probably quite a bit in terms of any flooding that might be occurring in that type of a situation.
Zoe Freeman: [00:04:31] Yeah. So, hurricane season definitely is a big season for folks like us in this industry, and we’re on standby, we’re on watch. We’ve got folks ready to deploy, manpower, equipment. It’s just a constant rotation or constant monitoring of events. And to know where our clients are and strategize where we need to be, ready for those efforts. And it’s a lot of fun, but we got a lot of experience at it, so I’d like to think we’re pretty good at what we do.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:06] Yeah. So, is there any trending or anything that you’re seeing that’s popping up more and more that workplaces or organizations, maybe not just the workplace, but that organizations need to be aware of that if they’re not thinking about it, they probably should be thinking about it.
Zoe Freeman: [00:05:19] Absolutely. That’s going to be pre-loss planning. So, one of the events over the last couple of years have just really got the risk world, as well as other parts within the company, but specifically risk, in that pre-loss planning mode, because if you’re able to, upfront, make those contract, get those contracts in place, and build those relationships, and make those introductions between your broker, and your insurance, and your risk manager, and your contractors at the event of when the actual time happens, there’s so much that goes into it.
Zoe Freeman: [00:06:02] There’s so much time saved, so much money saved. The barrier of communication is better. It made things go so much faster. Pre-loss planning is something that we can’t share enough, and that’s what we are seeing in Signal and I’m sure other restoration companies as well, is that want and that need to start a pre-loss planning dialogue and put a plan in place.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:06:30] Yeah. It’s like you don’t want to be making decisions of who you should be calling when something happens. You want to know who you’re calling.
Zoe Freeman: [00:06:35] Absolutely. You absolutely don’t want that to be one of those, we’ll pick it up when it happens. This is one of the things that you definitely want to plan ahead for. And yeah, there are so many wonderful things that come out of having a plan in place. And one of the other things is because of that also and because of the pre-loss planning, you’ve got folks that are starting to—restoration companies were able to say, you’ve got the housing community, you’ve got these folks, everybody’s on board. We’ve got to get these business continuity plans in place, so a lot of good stuff out there.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:24] Yeah. And I know you’re an exhibitor here at RIMS.
Zoe Freeman: [00:07:26] We are a sponsor this year.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:07:28] Oh, you’re a sponsor on top of that. Okay. Great.
Zoe Freeman: [00:07:31] Yeah, we’re excited about that. So, we’ve been a RIMS member for years, but again, being our 50th, we were really excited, and we wanted to come in and be a sponsor as well. You will see us out here next year exhibiting. So, Signal is kind of like, I’d like to say a small, little kept secret. We haven’t done a whole lot of marketing in the past. We’ve been very word of mouth over the last couple of years. We’ve started into the marketing scene, so you’ll definitely see more of us.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:05] Wonderful.
Zoe Freeman: [00:08:05] Yeah.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:05] And if somebody wanted to get a hold of you after listening to this show, how would they do that?
Zoe Freeman: [00:08:11] You could just give me a call. I’m very transparent. I love phone calls. Call me, please. We could spend forever emailing back and forth. Just call me. 817-504-7748. zoe@signal. Call me with anything, questions about anything, meetings. If you know somebody in the company and you want to ask me about them, just give me a call.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:39] Wonderful. Well, I appreciate you being on the show, Zoe.
Zoe Freeman: [00:08:42] Thank you, Jamie.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:42] It’s been great chatting with you.
Zoe Freeman: [00:08:43] Great chatting with you, too. It’s been fun.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:08:46] Great.
Outro: [00:08:50] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.
