Winners’ Circle Training Centers

Jeff Dornberg

My career in the Disaster Restoration industry began over 20 years ago when I started a very successful independent company called Special Touch in San Diego, CA. My company was built on the traditional values of hard work, exemplary customer service, and the development of long lasting relationships. Special Touch had a large commercial base that consisted of companies like Motel 6, Ramada Hotels, Marine Corp bases in San Diego, insurance adjusters, and several large Property management companies to name a few.

Responding to my customers needs, Special Touch then added more services, such as carpet and upholstery cleaning and later opening two floor covering stores. With the addition of our new services our name was then changed to Special Touch Flooring Service, Inc. We enjoyed 15 years as an independent company. While working with the insurance industry as a full service restoration company, I met an insurance company supervisor named Don Hines. After successfully completing my first job for Don, having experienced my ability to resolve issues and handle bad situations, he then rewarded my performance by referring all his difficult mitigation and restoration projects. That relationship lead to a partnership on our first Disaster Restoration business in Long Beach, CA. During our first year of operation Don and I were named Rookies of the Year and fast start Rookies of the Year. Spending three years in Long Beach, CA we then sold our company and moved to Phoenix AZ where we developed two successful businesses. After helping the AZ market grow from 4% to 17% in just over 2 years we then got restless and bored. We did a great deal of research which led us to create a training center designed to develop key personnel such as Crew Chiefs, Project Managers and successful business owners.

Tim Ennis

My career spans over 27 years of leadership and management as an outside-of-the-box thinking executive in the disaster recovery industry. Beginning as a hands-on general manager of a mitigation company, my career then advanced through large commercial and industrial reconstruction. Under my leadership, project managers and I have mitigated or reconstructed in excess of 25,000 property damage claims of all sizes.

Contributions to the restoration industry include working for nearly 10 years as an advisor and beta test site for a popular estimating software company. My involvement on committees as a liaison and an AIC with insurance providers has helped improve integration and continuity within the opposing industries. My career path has also led me to serve as an expert witness in dozens of property damage court cases. Previously, as the syndicated radio talk show host for “Contractors Corner”, I found that showing others how to become their best has become my true passion.

Don Hines

A Retired Marine Officer, I was born and raised in Chicago. During the stage of growing up, I was always an entrepreneur. The dictionary’s description is: risk-taking businessperson. A strong desire to succeed, coupled with the flourishing economy lead to retail management until the Marine Corps got a hold of me. I traveled the world for 20 years, retired, and faced the “Real World”. Big shock—a college degree was required to get anywhere in the corporate world.

Later on, working as an Adjuster for Farmers’ Insurance, I was fortunate enough to complete my MBA after having met my Partner, Jeff Dornberg, on a water loss. My MBA project was focused on the restoration industry. Later, as a Supervisor, I ran across him again. His strong reputation in the marketplace coupled with his common-sense business savvy proved that he understood opportunity. We formulated detailed plans, went for broke, experienced it, and above all, reaped the rewards.

Together we have developed successful businesses in areas we were not familiar with, where we did not know anyone, and fully enjoyed the challenge. We followed our plan.

During the soul-searching phase of “where now” in our business, we were presented with some diverse talent: our Winners’ Circle partner, Tim Ennis. His industry knowledge and experience complements the Winners’ Circle team in the Commercial Restoration arena.

Bryan Swallow

Throughout my life, my ability to take knowledge and experience I’ve gained and apply them to diverse situations has given me the tools to learn and thrive in the disaster restoration industry.

I spent over nine years in the production/manufacturing industry, working with processes and practices designed to increase efficiency and constantly improve quality. This served me well while leading the production quality department at an automotive safety manufacturing plant, where I designed and implemented production line processes incorporating machine specifications, OSHA standards, live-run testing, and product research data. This experience has helped me to continually improve practices and provide a consistent delivery of service in a disaster restoration setting.

I started my career as a disaster restoration helper, and worked my way to the position of Operations Manager. The experience of supervising both residential and commercial projects, coupled with the support and training from Don Hines and Jeff Dornberg enabled me to grow with and help the business develop from $250,000 sales a year to $2.5 million sales within a period of 2 years. Through this experience, I have learned and developed processes and best practices to increase capacity and consistent delivery of service.

With a firm belief that education is the key to growth in this industry, my desire is to develop others into confident and competent leaders. Through empowerment and training, I developed quality crew chiefs and trained a crew chief to become Operations manager. I look forward to the opportunity to share what I have learned, and continue to learn, with you.