Easton-based 24 Restore, run by business partners Dan Morse of Raynham and Michael Wiseman of Mansfield, specializes in repairing or rebuilding homes and commercial properties after they are damaged by fire, water, mold, and other hazards. The firm also cleans up at crime scenes, which in 2013 included the Boston Marathon bombing. The firm has four other offices, in Waltham, Wilbraham, Providence, and Londonderry, N.H. We spoke to Morse for this story.
Q. How did 24 Restore come about?
A. We basically had two companies we merged about five years ago, one doing cleanup at trauma scenes and another doing restorations after fires, places damaged by water, mold reconstruction, and so forth. Prior to that, I was general manager at another company and then went out on my own. Mike and I had been friends for awhile; he was a vendor I used on biohazard jobs.
Q. What kind of jobs do you do?
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A. All kinds; we were in about 5,000 properties last year, whether working with law enforcement cleaning up cells or cruisers or crime scenes or a large commercial building where multiple units or entire floors have been damaged by water or fire.
Q. How has business growth been?
A. It’s been great, probably around 35-40 percent over the last few years, and last year, we opened three new locations. We work at about 12 properties a day on average, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Q. How difficult is doing crime-scene cleanups?
A. Well, it has to be done, and chances are the things you see on the news are things we’re involved in cleaning up. We’ve been to murder scenes, suicides, unattended deaths, and we were the company that cleaned up after the Boston Marathon bombing. My partner ran that cleanup and said, as in any tragic situation we deal with, it felt like we were the start of the healing process, of trying to put things back together, the first positive step after a really horrible situation.
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Q. Your trained technicians also work with emergency responders?
A. Yes, our folks are all trained and certified, and we as an organization are trainers. We give training on safety on biohazards such as blood-borne pathogens to law enforcement, fire services, anyone in the first-responder realm. That’s an added value to what we do; we don’t charge for it.
Paul E. Kandarian can be reached at pkandarian@aol.com.