More than two decades later, the summit has grown into one of the most respected executive development programs in the trades. And this year, it’s moving to Chicago, July 20-.

“There was very little being offered within the cleaning and restoration industries in the realm of small business leadership and management,” Violand said. “Lots in technical, which is very important, but nothing with leading and managing companies.”

That gap is exactly what the summit was designed to close—and according to Violand and Tim Hull, who took over ownership of Violand Management Associates at the end of 2024, it’s more relevant now than ever.

A new city, the same standard

The move to Chicago is a deliberate one. With a large concentration of cleaning and restoration companies in the metro area and a venue capable of supporting the summit’s signature blend of high-level instruction and high-touch experience, Chicago was a natural fit.

But the location change doesn’t alter what the summit has always been about. Violand describes the experience as “Fortune 500-level programming for businesses of any size.” The goal from the beginning was to bring world-class instruction and facilities together with the day-to-day reality of running a small business—and to hold that standard from the moment an attendee arrives at the hotel to the moment they leave.

“We deliberately made it different than other programs,” Violand said.

Education as the whole point

Hull, now the owner of Violand Management Associates, said what sets the summit apart from other industry events comes down to a single word: purpose.

“If you go to industry conferences, you go there primarily for the networking, which we have a lot of,” Hull said. “But coming there solely for the purpose of furthering yourself and leveling your business up is a unique endeavor.”

First-time instructors at the summit consistently remark on how eager the audience is to learn. That’s not an accident. The summit draws a self-selected group of business owners and leaders who show up ready to work—and the instructors are chosen specifically to meet them there.

Past faculty has included nationally and internationally recognized names such as Jim Bagnola, Jim Ryerson, Jack Shanks, Jim Sullivan, and Holly Bogner, among many others. These are professionals trained in adult learning, not classroom lecturers.

Sessions are interactive, built around group exercises and real-world case studies, and structured so that attendees leave with something they can implement immediately.

“The goal on our part is to give the audience something that they can immediately go back to their businesses with at the end of the week and implement,” Hull said. “If we did that, we did our job.”

Who the summit is really for

The word “executive” can give some people pause, but Hull pushes back on the idea that it’s intimidating.

“If you’re intimidated by that word, maybe look at it in a little different context—look at it as something that you aspire to be,” he said. “We try to go to great lengths to bring out the best in people, and the Executive Summit is set at that level to get people thinking and working at a different altitude. That’s why it’s called the Summit.”

Violand puts it plainly: the summit was built for small business owners in the trades. Whether a company is just finding its footing or already running at scale, the content is designed to meet owners and leaders where they are and push them further.

What’s on business owners’ minds right now

Hull said the challenges he hears most from cleaning and restoration business owners today are consistent: unpredictability, economic uncertainty, pressure to do more with less, and a constant shortage of time. The summit, he said, directly addresses all of it.

“In my opinion, the summit really represents an opportunity for business owners to invest in themselves and their staff,” Hull said. “You can’t get a bigger ROI than when you invest in yourself and your team and your business because it all starts there.”

Violand added that one of the most pressing issues for businesses of any size right now is developing the next generation of leaders from within. Today’s workforce is populated with smart, motivated millennials and Gen Z employees who are eager to advance—but who simply haven’t been in the workforce long enough to have built deep management experience.

“The Executive Summit, in our opinion, is a powerful tool in that leadership development toolbox to help bridge that gap by providing that training,” he said.

Results that show up over time

Violand is candid about the nature of leadership development: it rarely produces an overnight transformation. The summit is designed as what he calls a “trickle feed”—the kind of investment that compounds over time as owners and their teams absorb and apply what they’ve learned.

One sign he watches for? LinkedIn profiles. Over the years, Violand began noticing that attendees were listing the Executive Summit under the education section of their profiles—placing it alongside college degrees and professional certifications.

“That told me volumes about the value that they found in the program and the impact that it was having on their businesses,” he said.

Hull’s example is more personal. A longtime client who attended one of his early sessions on organizational design—a course that used NASCAR pit crew strategy and a competitive Lego race car exercise to illustrate business growth concepts—brought it up years later, as the two were preparing to sell the client’s company.

“He said, ‘Looking back on all the things that we’ve done and we’ve talked about, one of the things I remember very fondly was the duct tape,'” Hull recalled. The metaphor—using a temporary fix to get a business from one phase of growth to the next—had stayed with him for years and shaped how he navigated his own transitions.

That kind of staying power, Hull said, is the point.

The details

The Violand Executive Summit takes place in Chicago from July 20-22. For registration information and the full event schedule, visit the registration page .

The post Same Mission, Bigger Stage: Violand Executive Summit Heads to Chicago appeared first on Cleanfax.

On September 28-29, 2026, CIRI will host its first Science Symposium at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas—a two-day event designed to close the gap between laboratory research and the technicians doing the work every day. Registration is open now at ciriscience.org.

“It’s all about how we can get the information that the research is being done on to the technicians in the field and make it understandable,” said CIRI Chairman Kevin Pearson, who also serves on the IICRC board. “The science is great, but how do you apply it? That’s really what this symposium is all about.”

A new home for an important mission

CIRI has a history worth knowing. The organization was founded with a straightforward but ambitious goal: to root cleaning practice in evidence-based science and measurable outcomes. After a period of uncertainty at the end of 2024, IICRC stepped in to bring CIRI under its umbrella — a move Pearson had advocated for years earlier during his tenure as IICRC chairman.

Since then, CIRI has published two issues of the Journal of Cleaning Science, rebuilt its organizational structure, and is now staging its first major public event. Pearson, who has served on the IICRC board for 15 years, is chairing the effort with the same straightforward lens he applies to everything: how does this actually affect someone in the field?

“I really enjoy seeing the cool research that comes out and thinking about how it could have affected me when I had my cleaning and restoration company,” Pearson said. “That’s what I come back to, how does this apply?”

Who will be in the room

The speaker lineup is unlike anything the industry has seen at a single event. Researchers from Yale, the University of Toronto, Berkeley Labs, NIST, and institutions in Australia are confirmed to attend — not just to present, but to engage directly with attendees throughout both days.

Sessions will cover smoke and fire restoration, mold, water damage, and adjacent disciplines. One presenter will address how NASA approaches cleaning aboard the International Space Station. Another will explore the restoration of fine art damaged by fire or Category 3 water — a niche that turns out to have significant crossover with restoration science.

For attendees who do hands-on fire or mold work, Pearson’s advice is simple: come with questions.

“If you do a lot of fire restoration work or a lot of mold work, you’re going to have the experts there in those fields doing the research,” he said. “If you’ve got questions you’re always wondering about, maybe those researchers haven’t gotten to that point yet—or haven’t thought about that aspect. There’s going to be a lot they can learn from people in the field, and a lot of people in the field can take back to their companies.”

That two-way exchange is intentional. CIRI has been bringing researchers into IICRC instructor meetings for the past couple of years, and the dynamic has been striking. “When the researchers are in the room, the instructors don’t leave,” Pearson said. “They don’t get up. They’re there, they’re engaged, they’re asking questions. And the researchers are learning from them.”

Why it matters long term

The symposium is built around a simple premise that the industry has been slow to fully embrace: Cleaning must be rooted in science. Not just in appearance, not just in anecdote, but in documented, peer-reviewed, measurable outcomes.

For Pearson, who describes the CIRI chairmanship as one of the most genuinely educational experiences of his career, the long-term vision is an event that grows in scope each year as more research comes online and more industry professionals engage with it.

“There’s so much research being done,” he said. “I think every year we can build on it and bring in more and more people.”

The symposium takes place on the 52nd floor of a Palms tower, with floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the Las Vegas Valley and access to an outdoor patio during breaks.

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Watch the interview and listen to the podcast:

The post Where Science Meets the Field: Inside the CIRI Science Symposium 2026 appeared first on Cleanfax.

Thomas and I have since driven about 4,000 miles together. Thomas is going to cost me $2,000.

That is the thing about small problems. They are incredibly patient. They will wait you out. They don’t get tired. They don’t get bored. They just sit there, getting slightly worse every single day. And you? You get used to them. That is the trap.

The brain’s normalization problem

The human brain is wired to normalize its environment. That is a genuinely helpful feature when you are adjusting to a new city or a new job. It is a genuinely terrible feature when you are running a business.

Think about the last time you walked past something in your shop or your facility and thought, yeah, somebody should deal with that. And then you walked past it again. And again. And then one day you stopped even seeing it. It became furniture.

Small problems are sneaky that way. They do not announce themselves. They quietly integrate into your normal until “normal” becomes a pretty generous word for whatever is actually going on.

The examples are everywhere in this industry. A technician who seems a little checked out becomes a technician who quits mid-season with no notice. A piece of equipment that runs just a little hot becomes a piece of equipment that dies on a job site — and it is never on a Tuesday. It is always Friday at 2 or 3 p.m. A customer who seemed slightly unhappy when the job wrapped up becomes a one-star review you’ll read at 11 p.m. and lose sleep over.

None of those things happened suddenly. They were all Thomas the Tick—ticking away, waiting for you to deal with them or not deal with them.

The discount version of the work

To be fair, you are busy. You are running crews, quoting jobs, managing cash flow, and answering texts from people who absolutely cannot figure out the scheduling app. You do not have infinite bandwidth.

But here is the point. Dealing with small problems early is not extra work. It is actually the work’s discount version. Because the longer you wait, the more expensive the solution becomes—in money, in time, in stress, and sometimes in relationships you genuinely cannot afford to lose.

The best operators in this industry share one trait. When asked how they handle problems, the answer tends to sound something like “We’ve always dealt with it.” They hear a weird tick on Tuesday and take the truck in on Wednesday. They have an awkward conversation with an employee before it becomes an HR situation. They follow up with the borderline customer before that one-star review goes live.

They are not perfect. They miss things, too. But they have built something—a culture in their business and in themselves—where small problems get named, addressed, and resolved. Not tolerated.

Your one Thomas

Here is the challenge: identify one Thomas in your business right now. Just one. That thing you have been walking past, explaining away, or planning to get to eventually.

Write it down. Give it a deadline. Then actually do something about it.

And when you are tempted to ask yourself whether it is really a big deal right now, try a different question instead: Is this the standard I am willing to accept?

Do not let Thomas the Tick ride along for another 4,000 miles. When he rides along, you will pay the price.

Watch the interview and listen to the podcast:

The post The Real Cost of ‘I Will Deal With It Later’ appeared first on Cleanfax.

Dean Mercado, founder of Online Marketing Muscle and a longtime AI strategist for the cleaning and facility services industries, said that’s the wrong approach.

“Everything in your business should start with a challenge that you have, a problem you need to solve, something you want a little help with, and then you choose the right tool for the right job,” Mercado said. “I’m not going to use a screwdriver to pound a nail in. I mean, I will if I have to, but I shouldn’t if I don’t have to.”

Mercado outlined seven core business challenges, along with the best AI tools for each, based on his research and personal daily use.

Before diving in, he offered one caution: always vet the companies behind the tools you use and be careful about what proprietary or sensitive information you share.

Writing: Claude leads the pack

For drafting proposals, SOPs, employee reviews, client responses, or any content where the human voice matters, Mercado ranked Claude as the best option, with Gemini as a solid middle choice and ChatGPT as a safe, if generic, fallback.

“Claude seems to get the human side of the voice better than the rest,” he said. His technique: draft in one tool, then run that draft through a second to grade and improve the result. “I’ll pit one against the other—here’s what I got from ChatGPT, what do you say about this? How can I make this a 10?”

Research: control your source material

For general web research, Mercado recommended Perplexity over a standard Google search. But when the research needs to draw on specific, trusted sources—industry standards, compliance documents, proprietary training material—his top pick was Notebook LM, a free Google tool that lets users build a controlled knowledge vault by uploading their own documents and URLs.

He also flagged Grok, which draws on data from X (formerly Twitter), as a useful wild card for picking up on industry sentiment and conversations that other tools might miss.

Planning: let Gemini connect the dots

For daily, weekly, quarterly, or annual planning—including route planning and crew scheduling—Mercado placed Gemini at the top, largely because of its native integration with Google Workspace. ChatGPT ranked as a solid good option, with Claude closing the gap as its planning capabilities have recently improved.

“Because of the way it already taps into everything I use in Google Workspace—my email, my calendar—Gemini is a little bit more powerful,” he said.

Strategy and brainstorming: ChatGPT’s memory stands out

When it comes to thinking something through—pressure-testing a decision, pricing a new commercial account, mapping out options—Mercado called ChatGPT his go-to, citing its stronger memory across sessions as the differentiator.

“If I want help thinking, not just help typing, I go to ChatGPT,” he said. He will often cross-check by running the result through Claude for a sanity check.

Numbers and data: Gemini again

For job costing, margin analysis by service type, recurring versus one-time revenue breakdowns, or any task that involves turning raw numbers into usable insight, Mercado pointed to Gemini—especially for users who store data in Google Sheets, where Gemini can connect directly.

“If you don’t know your numbers, you don’t know your business,” he said. “And it’s not just enough to parrot the numbers back to me. Knowing what they mean is a different story.”

Visuals: Nano Banana, then Canva

For social graphics, website imagery, before-and-after photos, recruiting visuals, or ad concepts, Mercado said Nano Banana—Google’s AI image generation model built into Gemini—delivers the strongest results when accuracy to a prompt matters. Canva AI ranked as the better option for refining and finishing images, and ChatGPT’s image function came in as the good baseline.

His workflow often combines both: generate the image in Nano Banana, bring it into Canva to remove or replace elements, and add text or branding. “The image is so realistic, you would not know that it was AI generated,” he said. “You’ve got to know how to prompt—if you don’t know how to ask for exactly what you want, you’re going to get whatever it thinks you’re saying.”

Learning: build your own training room

Mercado’s top pick for accelerated learning was again Notebook LM, which he uses to create targeted “training rooms” by loading in source materials—videos, newsletters, SOPs, industry standards—and then querying the notebook to extract exactly what he needs. YouTube ranked as the better option for general learning, and Google Search as the baseline good choice.

He described using this approach to help clients avoid expensive courses by building a Notebook LM with the best available material on a topic and interacting with it directly. “You could do that in 15 minutes, and you’ll have what you need,” he said.

The same method works for staff training: load in company training videos, SOPs, and process documents, and the resulting notebook draws exclusively from that internal content rather than from outside sources.

Three honorable mentions

Beyond the seven core challenges, Mercado highlighted three additional tools for owners who think faster than they type, run a lot of meetings, or want to automate repetitive tasks.

For voice-to-text dictation, he recommended Wispr Flow (wisprflow.ai), a cross-platform app that transcribes speech into polished text across any application. “I want you to imagine you’re in the field and you want to communicate something,” he said. “Pop open Wispr Flow, dictate whatever it is you want to talk about, and then keep moving.”

For meeting notes, he listed three options at different maturity levels: Otter.ai for a tried-and-true solution, Fathom for its free version and easy sharing features, and Granola as the emerging choice for users who don’t want a bot joining their calls. Unlike the others, Granola captures audio directly from the device without appearing as a participant.

For automation, Mercado’s default combination remains Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) paired with Zapier—a stack he said can automate nearly anything short of physical cleaning work. For owners ready to go deeper, he pointed to Make and n8n as proven platforms for building more complex automated workflows.

Start with the problem, not the tool

Mercado organized AI tools into three broad levels: chat (conversational tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini), automation (tools that execute tasks on command), and agents (AI systems that independently pursue an outcome using whatever resources they need). Most cleaning and restoration owners, he said, are still in the chat tier—and that’s a legitimate place to get significant value.

His parting advice was to resist the temptation to get married to any single tool.

“You’re not married and you shouldn’t be married to one tool,” he said. “If you’re not getting what you want from one, switch. Or use the technique I do: pit one against another. It gets easy. Trust me.”

Watch the interview and listen to the podcast:

The post Stop Using One AI Tool for Everything appeared first on Cleanfax.

That is precisely the premise behind this inaugural episode of RIA Beyond, a new multimedia program from the Restoration Industry Association produced in collaboration with Cleanfax.

New voices, deep roots

Saima Hedrick, the RIA’s new CEO, is three months into her role, arriving with more than 20 years of experience in association management and a background in public health.

Justin Woodard, the organization’s president-elect, brings a different kind of history to the table. He is the owner and CEO of Woodard Cleaning and Restoration in St. Louis—a third-generation company—and he noted that both his grandfather and grandmother previously served as president of the RIA in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively.

“I kind of feel a sense of pride to be able to sit in the same seat, or follow in the footsteps, if you will, of my grandparents,” Woodard said.

That generational perspective matters in the context of their conversation. The RIA’s original code of ethics was developed in 2006—a document that reflected a membership that looked quite different from what it does today, before the rug cleaning segment broke off to form its own association in 2009. The industry has changed. The code needed to change with it.

More than words on a page

Hedrick described a deliberate, stakeholder-driven process behind the updated ethics framework. Rather than revising a list of principles in isolation, the RIA convened different groups—including a carrier relations task force and a carrier representative task force—to surface what each party actually needs from the others to build trust.

“We took a really holistic process in all of this,” Hedrick said. “This time we really took a point to have conversations with different stakeholders and really come to the table about, what do you need from restorers to build up trust?”

The result is not simply an updated document to post on a website. Hedrick said follow-up education, accountability structures, and ongoing dialogue are all part of the plan—something she called unlike anything she has seen in 20-plus years working in associations.

Woodard framed the ethics code in practical terms: not as a compliance statement, but as a list of behaviors that are critical to success. And he was direct about what it takes to make that kind of document work inside an organization.

“It takes incredible repetition of the expectations and those standards,” he said. “You have to repeat, repeat, repeat and talk about it all the time.” He also emphasized building those behaviors into the rhythms of meetings, gatherings, and day-to-day operations—and recognizing people when they demonstrate them. “We have to highlight and catch people and restorers doing the right things,” he said. “And we have to elevate those people.”

When it comes to accountability and consequences for ethical misses, Woodard’s view was measured. Consequences matter and provide protection, he said, but they are not the engine that drives a healthy ethical culture. “You don’t implement core values with a stick.” The real work is consistently encouraging people toward the right behaviors—starting with leaders who model them.

Watch the video here and listen to the podcast, and keep reading below:

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Balancing advocacy and trust

One of the more pointed questions in the conversation concerned how the RIA can advocate for restorers while simultaneously building trust with carriers and other stakeholders who may see things differently. Woodard acknowledged the tension honestly.

“I’ve been on the side of the table where I feel like I am the little guy,” he said, where he felt taken advantage of, and where his instinct was to fight back and win by making the other side lose. He said that approach doesn’t work, and over time he has come to believe it doesn’t even feel as satisfying as expected.

His alternative is rooted in a principle his father instilled at Woodard for years: the win-win-win. “That’s a win for the customer. That’s a win for our employees. And that’s a win for Woodard or the shareholders.” Woodard argued that the same framework applies across the industry—that restorers, carriers, adjusters, and consultants are not adversaries, but parties who all need to arrive at outcomes that serve the homeowner or business owner who is trying to get their life back.

“We have to stop pretending like they’re the other side,” Woodard said. “We are all in this to help the customer get back to their life.”

Hedrick brought it back to a practical reality: ethics is good for business. A trusting relationship with carriers and other stakeholders is not a soft goal—it is a competitive and operational advantage.

The one standard the industry needs most

Asked to name a single ethical standard the industry should embrace more seriously right now, Woodard chose transparency—and he was specific about what that means in practice.

The restoration industry involves novel worksites on a regular basis. Restorers run into scenarios nobody has seen before. Consultants get assigned. Relationships with adjusters may or may not exist. Billing disputes loom in the background of jobs that are still in progress. Woodard’s contention is that the industry would be better served by more direct, upfront communication about those concerns—asking the questions that

feel uncomfortable, disclosing worries early, and negotiating clearly on the issues that tend to cause conflict later.

“If we could just have a little bit more transparency—if we could say, hey, I’m a little concerned about this one—that we’re going to do all this stuff upfront and we’re not going to be treated fairly on the back end,” Woodard said. “We might go just that much further in building trust between all the different people that have to come together to help customers.”

It is, he acknowledged, a nerve-wracking shift for an industry accustomed to holding cards close to the vest. But in his experience, a different result requires a different approach. “I really believe if we are able to do things in a more transparent way, communicate more clearly, we will increase trust in the ecosystem. We will be seen as the professionals that we are.”

The next step

The RIA plans to continue this conversation at its upcoming convention in Savannah, Georgia, where the new ethics framework and related projects will be presented to the broader membership. Hedrick and Woodard both encouraged industry professionals to get involved by participating on committees and task forces, joining the RIA, or simply referring a colleague who has not yet joined.

RIA Beyond will continue as a multimedia program with articles, videos, and podcasts. For an industry navigating significant strain in its relationships with carriers, TPAs, and other stakeholders, the hope is that a renewed foundation in ethics offers more than a good-looking document. It offers a way forward.

Don’t miss the RIA International Restoration Convention & Industry Expo. Click .

Learn more about RIA membership. Click .

The post The Trust Factor: An Inside Look at RIA’s New Ethics Framework appeared first on Cleanfax.

Doug Hoffman, executive director of NORMI (National Organization of Remediators and Microbial Inspectors), and John Greenwell, general manager of EcoLife Asia, have spent considerable time at that intersection. Greenwell consults and conducts audits primarily for luxury hotels across Asia and the Middle East. Together, the two have developed a joint training program targeting hotels and resorts, built on NORMI’s standards framework and Greenwell’s on-the-ground regional experience.

A guest experience issue, not a facilities issue

The reframe Greenwell brings to hospitality clients is simple but consequential: hotels are not managing buildings; they are managing guest experience and brand trust.

“A hotel can do everything right operationally, but it’s really what the guest feels,” Greenwell said. “If they walk into a room and it feels stuffy or it smells off, that’s what they remember.”

Leading brands have responded by building IAQ and mold prevention into brand standards, design decisions, and daily operations rather than treating them as reactive maintenance. IAQ now affects comfort scores, online reviews, repeat stays, and staff retention—a dimension Greenwell said many properties still fail to recognize. In Asia especially, brand standards for humidity and particulate levels typically exceed local jurisdictional thresholds, because the strongest organizations understand that a one-size-fits-all approach across multiple climates simply does not work.

Two levels of training, one shared goal

For Hoffman, the hospitality challenge mirrors a broader one that NORMI addresses across every vertical: ensuring the right work gets done the right way, every time. The IICRC S520 provides the standard of care, and NORMI’s professional practices provide the pathway to it.

The joint training framework targets two audiences. The first is housekeeping staff—the people Hoffman described as the real first responders, the ones most likely to encounter mold in a guest bathroom before anyone else does. The second is facilities and maintenance management, who may not perform remediation themselves but need to understand correct work well enough to hold contractors accountable.

“Too often, properties think that when they contract something out, it’s no longer their problem,” Greenwell said. “That’s really flawed. They must have an understanding of what the contractor should be doing to ensure the problem is actually addressed properly.”

The training is also being delivered in multiple languages—Mandarin, Japanese, and Vietnamese among them—to reach hotel staff across the region for whom English is not a primary language.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Greenwell identified three recurring failures across the properties he audits. The first is acting only after visible mold, odors, or guest complaints appear—by which point, he said, the problem is already established. The second is prioritizing temperature control while neglecting moisture; even a well-designed HVAC system will struggle if humidity is not actively managed.

The third—and the one the training program directly targets—is siloing IAQ as a purely engineering concern. Greenwell said he regularly walks into areas of properties where he can smell mold or see condensation on supply vents, and staff working nearby have not noticed either.

“In my training, I’ve coined a phrase: see something, smell something, feel something—then say something,” Greenwell said. “That applies to everybody in the property.”

Hoffman echoed the team accountability point. “Don’t ignore what you see, don’t ignore what you smell, don’t ignore what someone’s told you,” he said. “In larger organizations, that toolbox-training mentality—where everybody understands the goal—is sometimes neglected. But for hospitality, guest comfort has to be at the top of the list.”

Where to start

Both Greenwell and Hoffman said the first step is attitudinal, not technical.

“They need to see indoor air quality and mold as a guest experience and asset protection issue—not a facilities or compliance issue,” Greenwell said. “Making that connection leads to everything else: improved retention, improved revenue, improved reputation.”

From there, the practical steps follow: focus on prevention over reaction, break down departmental silos, commit to training across all levels of the property, and conduct regular external audits. At the enterprise level, Greenwell said the strongest brands pair clear global IAQ frameworks with enough local flexibility for regional teams to adapt to their specific climates and conditions.

“The brands that get this right don’t start with technology,” he said. “They start with intent and commitment. They decide that air quality is part of the experience they’re selling, and then they build the systems and structure to support that decision.”

More information on NORMI’s training programs is available .

The post Why Air Quality is the New Five-Star Standard appeared first on Cleanfax.

Most people in the cleaning and restoration industry know the IICRC by its certifications, its standards, and the credentials that appear on business cards and company websites. But behind all of that is a team of real people whose job is to make sure the organization is accessible, responsive, and genuinely useful to everyone who reaches out—whether that’s a seasoned restoration professional or a homeowner who just discovered water damage in their basement.

In this episode of Unscripted, an IICRC video production, Gabe Rowley, Helpdesk Representative at the IICRC, shares what it’s like to be on the front lines of that interaction every single day.

The range of what Rowley handles is wider than most people might expect. Certifications, supply orders, exam questions, general inquiries from technicians in the field, calls from consumers who aren’t sure where to turn—it all comes through the helpdesk, and it all requires someone who can think on their feet, communicate clearly, and represent the organization well under pressure. No two calls are exactly alike, and that variety is part of what makes the role both challenging and rewarding.

What ties it all together is a commitment to keeping communication flowing across the organization. The helpdesk isn’t just a call center—it’s a connection point. When a technician has a question about their certification status, when a training provider needs clarification on a standard, or when a consumer is trying to figure out who they can trust to do the job right, Rowley and his colleagues are the first voice they hear. That first impression matters.

One of the tools Rowley highlights in this conversation is the IICRC Global Locator—a resource that helps consumers find certified professionals in their area quickly and with confidence. For contractors who have invested in their credentials, the Global Locator is one of the most direct ways the IICRC connects that investment to real business opportunity. And for consumers, it removes the guesswork from one of the most stressful decisions they’ll make in the middle of an emergency.

This episode is a behind-the-scenes look at the role that keeps everything—and everyone—connected, and a reminder that great organizations are built as much on the people who answer the phone as the ones who write the standards.

The post Gabe Rowley: Much More Than Option 5 on the IICRC Helpdesk appeared first on Cleanfax.

In this conversation, we explore the IICRC Legislative Fly-In, where industry professionals meet directly with Congressional offices to advocate for the work of inspectors, cleaners, and restorers—and for the standards and certifications that protect consumers and communities.

Learn why this event matters, what attendees can expect, and how advocacy is helping shape the future of the industry. Click to register.

The post Policy in Motion: Why the IICRC Legislative Fly-In Matters to You appeared first on Cleanfax.

In this episode of Unscripted, an video production, we take a closer look at the people behind the scenes who help keep the cleaning and restoration industry moving forward—the ones who don’t make the headlines but whose work makes everything else possible.

This time, that person is Alicia Hooks, the IICRC Renewals Reinstatement Supervisor.

On the surface, the role is about process. Answering calls and emails, guiding professionals through certification renewals, helping them navigate continuing education requirements, and making sure the administrative side of staying certified doesn’t become a barrier to the work itself. It’s detail-oriented, deadline-driven, and demands consistency day in and day out.

But spend any time with Hooks, and it becomes clear the job is about something bigger than paperwork.

Behind every renewal request is a professional trying to stay compliant, stay competitive, and stay employed. These are technicians, project managers, and business owners who have invested real time and money into earning their credentials—and who are counting on someone like Hooks to help them protect that investment when life gets in the way. A missed deadline, a lapsed certification, a confusing reinstatement process—any of those things can have real consequences for a person’s livelihood.

That’s the weight Hooks carries into every interaction, and it shapes how she leads her team and approaches her work. Serving the customer, in this role, means understanding what’s actually at stake for the person on the other end of the phone. It means finding solutions, not just processing requests. And it means recognizing that helping someone keep their certification current isn’t just an administrative task—it’s helping them keep working, support their families, and continue building the career they’ve worked hard to create.

In this episode, you’ll hear firsthand what it looks like to lead with service, work as a team, and find genuine purpose in helping others succeed—both on the job and at home.

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Verisk, the parent company of Xactimate, has introduced updated labor efficiency settings—including a new designation called large loss efficiency—that alter how labor time is calculated and, by extension, what an estimate pays out. According to industry consultants Ben Justesen and Nate Cisney of Restoration Made Simple (RMS), the average restoration contractor is not yet aware that this is happening.

“It’s going to get even hotter because many people don’t even know about it yet,” Justesen said.

What’s actually changing

To understand the impact, it helps to know what Xactimate’s labor efficiency settings actually do beneath the surface. Each line item in Xactimate is supported by a set of time assumptions Verisk calls supporting events—built-in allowances for things like drive time, breaks, setup, cleanup, and what the software describes as overall loss of productivity from working in a restoration environment.

Those time allowances get factored into the labor pricing. The new large loss efficiency setting reduces several of those allowances significantly. According to Justesen, the setting removes the 60-minute daily drive time assumption entirely, trims the setup and cleanup allowance from roughly 42 minutes to 35 minutes, and eliminates the 37.5-minute restoration environment productivity loss factor altogether.

Justesen pointed out that the information presented here is an example of one of the trades they analyzed. “Each trade is a little different in how they are reduced,” he explained. “What’s really happening on the inside is it’s reducing the waste time on the labor,” Justesen said. “They’re not giving us drive time. We’re not getting the overall loss of productivity working in a restoration environment.”

The net result, based on calculations Justesen and Cisney have run, is an average reduction of 4% to 5% off the total estimate compared to standard restoration pricing. That may not sound dramatic in isolation, but when applied across every job where a carrier or adjuster chooses to use the large-loss setting, the cumulative effect is significant.

“Most of us as contractors don’t realize when something maybe happens that hurts us adversely because we’re just running businesses,” Cisney said.

The definition problem

At the core of the concern is a question nobody seems to have a clear answer to: What, exactly, is a large loss?

Justesen said Verisk’s definition, as communicated so far, is vague—and that vagueness creates opportunity for misapplication. The parallel he drew is instructive. For years, insurance carriers disputed overhead and profit by arguing that a job lacked sufficient complexity or involved too few trades. The definitions were never clean, and the ambiguity consistently worked against contractors.

“I don’t know what large loss is,” Cisney said. “That’s another one of those where I go, there’s going to be a million opinions from somebody. And I’m going, I don’t think that’s the right way to quantify.” He offered his own example: some of the most labor-intensive, time-consuming jobs he ever handled were small-dollar losses complicated by difficult property owners. What makes a loss large isn’t always the dollar figure.

Justesen put a finer point on it: if an insurance company knows that applying a large loss setting saves 5% on an estimate, the incentive to push that threshold lower is real.

The global change problem

Beyond the definitional ambiguity, Justesen raised an objection that goes to the architecture of the setting itself. It applies globally across an entire estimate—meaning it adjusts labor pricing on every trade, every line item, all at once.

To illustrate why that’s a problem, he described a $2.5 million church restoration job. On trades like framing, drywall, and painting—where large quantities were involved and efficiency gains were legitimate—a modest downward adjustment might be defensible. But the same job required a specialty contractor to cut six feet of concrete for drainage work. That subcontractor had a minimum mobilization charge of roughly $2,000. Xactimate, even at standard pricing, was generating something closer to $200 for that line item.

“If I use this setting for large loss, sure, maybe it does for the framing, for the drywall, for the paint—it is okay, my efficiencies are better,” Justesen said. “But this one trade or these two trades are completely the opposite… and now you’re going to reduce my price by another 5% when I need to go up about 200%. It doesn’t make sense that we have a global setting. It should be by trade if they’re going to do this.”

The inverse problem applies on small jobs as well. A minor drywall patch—32 square feet—still requires multiple coats applied at precise humidity and temperature thresholds, with required curing time of up to 14 hours between coats. The labor inefficiency on a small job is arguably higher than on a large one, not lower. The same logic applies to carpet cleaning: the setup time to run hoses, mix chemicals, and place bumper guards is essentially fixed regardless of whether the job is 50 square feet or 500.

What contractors should do now

Justesen recommended that restoration professionals visit the Verisk website and ensure they are signed up to receive notifications about product and pricing updates. The large loss setting, he said, was released or is being released now, and most estimators and business owners have not seen the notification—either because it went to a spam folder or because the email is routed to ownership and never reaches the person running estimates day to day.

More broadly, both Justesen and Cisney emphasized that staying passive is not a viable response.

“The RIA is doing their best,” Justesen said, noting that the Restoration Industry Association is holding meetings, preparing position statements, and developing educational materials in response to the change. There have already been internal conversations with Verisk about making labor efficiency adjustments trade-specific rather than global, and about building in separate considerations for smaller jobs. Justesen said he is cautiously hopeful.

“I think they see [the concern],” he said. “And Verisk isn’t the only one—we have to look at all the estimating software programs and what they’re doing in their pricing and what they’re doing in their labor efficiencies.”

Cisney’s closing message was simpler: get educated, get involved, and get organized. “We need to come together and try to keep ourselves educated and let’s push for what we think are fair rights,” he said.

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