Member profiles

Meet Compleat! New member Q&A

If you live in Central Pennsylvania, then you have probably seen
Compleat Restorations trucks on the road or onsite at locations recently suffering fire or water damage, noting the unusual spelling of complete in their name.

Compleat Restorations is a new Center member–as of Spring 2011. They were founded in 1978 by Cliff and Lucy Ellis and have 50+ employees. Why the unusual spelling in the company name? Though once an alternate spelling for Complete, in modern American English Compleat has come to mean “highly skilled and accomplished in all aspects.”They do important work in the region and beyond, often for clients under duress. We thought you might be interested in learning more about their offerings.

1. What services does Compleat Restorations provide?

• all types of property damage including but not limited to residential, commercial, medical, and light industrial facilities.
• water damage mitigation (drying services)
• smoke and soot removal
• sewage back-up
• oil furnace “puff backs” and oil spills
• temporary shoring and roof repair
• trauma scene cleanup
• structure and content and deodorization
• electronics recovery and restoration
• mold testing and remediation
• removal, cleaning, deodorization, and storage of your home’s contents after a loss
• complete structure repair and restoration.
• duct cleaning
• emergency recovery planning for business
• professionally certified EPA Lead certification
• insurance claim coordination
• hurricane and catastrophic loss division (Hurricane Response Team) capable of responding anywhere in continental US

2. Where is Compleat Restorations located and what area(s) do you serve? Our corporate office is located in Ephrata and an additional large modern full service facility in York. We serve Lancaster, York, Berks, Dauphin, Chester, Adams Counties and nationwide remediating large catastrophic losses.

4. Recently you undertook the job to cleanup a flood at the Berks County Services Center. How many floors/rooms were impacted by the water leak? There were six floors affected and approximately 50 rooms with varying degrees of water damage ranging from severe to light.

5. How long did the cleanup effort take to get the building back to operating condition? We spent three days facilitating large scale drying operations and an additional three days cleaning up.

6. What types of work did your employees engage in (ie. painting, drywall, carpeting, etc.)? Our employees were engaged primarily in emergency drying operations.

7. Is this the largest job (in terms of estimated damage) that you have worked on? If not, what was the largest? Our largest job in terms of estimated damages was the Keller Bros. Ford Dealership fire of 2010 in Lititz. Our largest job to date geographically speaking was hurricane work in Florida in 2008. That was the year the Florida region got hit with four category 3 or better hurricanes.

Get to know Tomlinson Bomberger, member Q&A

During the Center’s 15th anniversary membership campaign, we added 15 new member businesses, including Tomlinson Bomberger. Established in 1981,Tomlinson Bomberger Lawn Care, Landscape & Pest Control is a locally-owned and operated company that creates and maintains lawns and landscapes. They employ a highly skilled, knowledgeable team that includes Certified Arborists, Certified Horticulturists, Certified Turfgrass Management, and Certified Technicians for Pest Control: 1. What services do you provide to businesses? We provide all services to make and keep your landscape beautiful. Examples: Landscape design and installation, Organic base lawn care program, Tree/Shrub care (fertilizing, spraying and pruning), Pest Control, Aeration and seeding, mulching, Athletic field maintenance. 2. Do you have other family businesses as clients and why have they come to you? We value relationships and therefore have many family businesses which we work with. Our company has the expertise and reputation with 30 years in business. 3. Essentially, what is your value proposition? Great people creating beautiful landscapes and lifelong relationships. Our company core values are: integrity, teamwork and high quality. We do it all when it comes to your landscaping.   4. It’s been a killer summer for lawns. What should homeowners be doing to help their lawns recover from the drought and how can you help? Fertilizing in the fall season is critical. Aeration and overseeding will help repair damage. 5. To what extent do you use and/or recommend “organic” treatments, such as fertilizers? Over 50% of our clients use our organic based fertilizer program. We recommend organic based treatments to their turf. 6. Top three tips for better-looking, healthier lawns and landscaping? 1. Soil testing to determine nutrient needs 2. Use of sharp blades on your lawn mower. 3. Seasonal lawn and/or landscape program to keep turf and plants healthy and weeds under control.

Get to know: Richards Energy Group, member Q&A

During our 15th anniversary membership campaign, we added 15 new member businesses, including Richards Energy Group, an independent ‘energineering’ firm dedicated to cutting energy costs, founded in 1995 by Frank Richards and headquartered in Landisville. Richards Energy Group has been an approved electric supplier in PA since 1999 and is also licensed by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission. Frank and his team kindly offered to answer our questions about Richards Energy Group:   1. What services do you provide to businesses? We help industrial & commercial customers manage electric costs, including competitive power purchasing, lighting retrofits, energy audits, demand response programs for backup generation, utility bill auditing, and cost analysis. 2. Do you have other family businesses as clients and why have they come to you? Many of our clients are family businesses. We are local, strive to do what’s best for each client, have substantial expertise and focus on service and value. So, our values are closely aligned with many other family businesses. 3. Essentially, what is your value proposition? We help clients understand and control energy costs. We invest our talents to provide optimal solutions to reduce both energy consumption and energy expenditures. We only recommend projects when the payback is good. 4. Now that PPL rate caps are gone, is it a good time to upgrade to high efficiency lighting systems? Absolutely. Efficient lighting upgrades are always a great idea, but now with the higher electric rates, the paybacks are faster. The systems we design usually cut electricity usage in half while improving light quality. 5. What is Act 129? Act 129 is a Pennsylvania law requiring electric utilities across the state to provide rebates to consumers to reduce electric consumption and demand. Everyone has to pay for it (look at the “Act 129″ line on your electric bill), so you might as well take advantage of it. 6. What are the rebates for? They are incentives for reducing electric energy consumption, including heating, air conditioning, industrial processes, and our favorite, lighting. 7. Are the rebates worth the effort? We’re typically seeing the rebates cutting overall lighting job costs by a third, which really improves payback…just this year so far, our clients have qualified for over $200,000 in rebates. 8. Are the rebates still available? Yes. And for projects we install, we do all the paperwork…rebate checks generally arrive about 2 months after project completion. The programs are funded each year, but we feel most of the rebates should be available through May, 2013. 9. Are the rebates just for business? Not at all. Residential consumers can benefit with rebates for high efficiency refrigerators, de-humidifiers, heat pumps, etc. In some cases, like compact fluorescent lamps for sale in stores, you can see the rebate already included in reduced prices. 10. What is the REAP users group? REAP is a unique electric power purchasing consortium established in 1998 to take advantage of the buying clout a large group can exercise over electric suppliers. REAP is an acronym for “Richards Energy Affinity Program”. 11. How is Richards Energy Group involved? I created REAP, making it a “strong” group…clients give us the authority to sign electric power deals for them, so we can act quickly and effectively when opportunities arise in the volatile energy futures market. 12. You actually sign the Supplier Contracts? Yes, and we don’t take that lightly…we also review those contracts thoroughly, and review the bills when they start coming to be sure clients actually get the deal they were supposed to. It’s a unique approach, but it has served our clients well. 13. Does REAP work? Yes…in fact, in 2003 and 2004, REAP comprised most of the load actually shopping in all of PPL. We now actively manage 1 billion kWh of industrial/commercial accounts, and provide shopping solutions no one else can offer. 15. A final word? We like our customers and we like “win-win”. That might sound worn out, but it rings true for Richards Energy.