Coastal Restoration

Pushing to be the Best—Big or Small

Chris Corder likes being a big fish in a small pond. “We’re in a really small community up in northwest Oregon a long way from the city,” he says, explaining that there was little external pressure on Coastal Restoration to innovate or adopt leading-edge processes. “But I’m constantly wanting to improve the business and challenge our crew.” He says that when Coastal Restoration attends industry events like Next Gear’s annual CONNECT convention, his company is recognized as one that punches well above its weight. He credits this reputation to paying close attention to industry advances and best practices.

In early 2018, his company was neck-deep in paperwork. “We had a huge stack of paper and folders that were spread out across our desks,” he says, explaining a situation that mirrors the plight of so many other restoration companies. He started looking at modern solutions to his age-old problems and reached out to Brandon Burton, a recognized industry expert, for advice. (We should note that Brandon now works at Next Gear where we benefit daily from his expertise.)

Coastal Restoration had only 10 employees, Chris explained; he knew that adopting new software could be difficult and wondered whether it was truly worth diving in. When Brandon assured him that Next Gear was a good tech partner that could help put Coastal Restoration on the path Chris wanted, “We decided to jump on board with Next Gear and DASH. My wife and I talked about it, and we said, ‘you know, I think we need to pull the trigger.’”

Chris says that, as could be expected at first, with new processes and procedures in place, “We had a bunch of resistance from the office.” He credits his office manager with making the system work, though, and being the driver of its success. “She pretty much told us, ‘Hey, I have to have the information [input into DASH]. You guys have to do it.’” Combine a hard-driving office manager with Next Gear training to discuss best practices, and Chris found a winning solution with DASH. “Our workflows are working really good right now,” he says.

Work-Life Balance

Chris’ desire to keep his company at the top of its game would seem at odds with his role as a family man—but he says that DASH helps overcome the inherent conflict. He shares just one small example of being at his daughters’ basketball practice when his phone and watch started lighting up with notifications. Knowing that he had a good team backstopped by good technology, he stayed in the moment with his daughters, choosing to review his DASH dashboard later that evening.

“Come the morning, I already know what the job is, what it looks like, where it’s located, if we have a signed authorization, if we put in any equipment in there, who the insurance company is…” Chris notes that he got all the information he needed through DASH without ever having to ask one of his team members for an update. “I didn’t even have to call them, didn’t have to bug them. They know that I know because I’m going to look [at DASH], and that’s huge.”

That’s DASH—driving company excellence with a healthy side of work-life balance.