This month we are featuring an interview with our Owner, Brandon O’Brien!
What is the history of your company?
I graduated from Palm Springs High School and left the area for a few years to pursue a college education and life experience. Returning home, I opened a window covering company at age 20 and then established Distinctive Restoration in 2006 as a local flooring store that sold and installed floor coverings all of types. After building up a large base of repeat customers and becoming established in the desert community, I realized that there was also a need for cleaning and maintenance services to care for floors long after installation. From there, Distinctive Restoration evolved into a company that would take care of customers, following through on their promises of excellent workmanship and providing great customer service through friendly and courteous staff.
When you first started, how many staff members did you have, and how has the business grown over the years?
We started the company with two people, myself and one other. Over the last several years, the company has grown to include a production manager, customer relationship manager, office staff, and several field technicians. We now have 11 staff members and are looking to hire a couple more in the coming months.
In the beginning what services did you provide, and how has the business changed over the years?
We started off providing carpet and upholstery cleaning, tile cleaning, and stone polishing. As the business grew, we saw the need for a company with our value system in the flood restoration space, [so] we started focusing our attention in those areas as well. We now have two divisions of the company – one for floor care and one for restoration.
How has the technology and/or equipment changed over the years?
Technology continues to improve our ability to do our jobs with an ever-increasing level of effectiveness and efficiency. Specialized drying equipment allows us to utilize less invasive drying procedures to dry customers’ homes our quicker, and create less damage for less costly and more quickly performed reconstruction.
Do you have any tips or advice for homeowners/property managers for keeping their spaces in excellent condition?
For floor care, routinely have traffic areas professionally cleaned to prolong the floor.
In restoration, routinely check supply lines and fittings to make sure that nothing is old and/or leaking.
With second homes, owners should utilize a concierge or home service company to check on homes while not in use.
Is there anything about the Palm Desert area that creates difficult or unique problems on the job that you might not encounter in other parts of the country?
Our constant sun, sandy environment, and extreme temperatures can create difficulties in the floor care and restoration fields.
Floor Care – sand blowing in through windows, sliders, and doors, then tracked throughout the house can cause a quicker breakdown of carpet fibers and more fine scratches in stone. The sun can scorch or burn flooring outside and fade flooring through the windows.
Floor Care and Restoration – The extreme heat in the summer months adds a level of difficulty with both the floor care and restoration sides of our business. Drying houses can be more difficult in a hot/dry environment and you need to have an understanding of how those affect equipment usage, placement, etc. The techniques that work in a more mild or humid atmosphere will not work in our area. Cleaning and polishing is also affected by the heat because you have less time to work with chemicals and faster drying times that can damage tile/stone if you don’t know what you are doing.
