Digital Salvaging in Centerville Iowa

CENTERVILLE — Most computer users have experienced the sinking feeling of losing valuable files. But Steve Kozak might be able to fix that.

In February 2010, Kozak started his business, Digital Salvaging, which does data recovery, digital investigations, computer repair and networking. He hopes eventually to focus solely on data recovery and digital investigations.

Kozak, who graduated from Centerville High School in 1998, went on to graduate with a degree in digital forensics from Champlain College in Burlington, Vt.

Kozak specializes in recovering lost files, from files that were accidentally deleted to hard drives that fail and have to be rebuilt. The hardest challenge he has faced so far was recovering data from a computer that was in a fire. Kozak, who is also a volunteer firefighter, noticed the computer at a business that had had a fire. He later went back to the business owners, asked if they needed the data from the computer, and performed the recovery.

Kozak performs computer/hard drive investigation using his digital forensics skills. He is available for private investigations as well as business investigations. “If a business suspects inappropriate Internet use I can get in there [and] find out what websites they’ve gone to,” Kozak said. “If somebody thinks they have a spouse that’s cheating on them,” he can inspect computer files including instant messaging logs to look for evidence.

Sharon Burch who is an author, professional speaker and clinician was starting to think the files from her business were gone for good after her Mac crashed. Everyone she talked to said the process would cost thousands of dollars and there was no guarantee of success. Then she heard about Kozak’s business. “He had it done in a week, and not for thousands of dollars,” Burch said.  Burch is an entrepreneur gaining fame for the creation of a new education method and the associated character Freddie the Frog and the associated books and stuffed animal products that are taking off around the globe.

“I think I said ‘I love you’” to Kozak after she got her files back, Burch recounted with a laugh. “Your whole business is on your computer and it just crashed. It’s worth every penny.”

Kozak charges for data recovery by the size of the hard drive.  His website, http://www.digitalsalvaging.com, lists prices for services.

He works with businesses and government agencies but, most Digital Salvaging customers have been private individuals. He also works with insurance companies as some work is covered by insurance policies in situations like fires. He encouraged interested individuals to contact their insurers to see whether they need an additional rider for such coverage.

Kozak plays a significant role in his rural community.  He created a Christmas light and sound display that could be heard in passing cards on what happens to be the nation’s largest town square.  “Centerville Bright Lights and Seasonal Sounds,” was a huge hit drawing tourists from surrounding communities.  He is planning more this year. Those driving or walking around the square at night could enjoy a display of lights that blinked in time with Christmas carols playing on 89.3 FM.

The Digital Salvaging office is located on the second floor of the Bradley Bank Building at 307 N. 13th St. on the Centerville Square.  Kozak is part of an intellectual small business incubator.

Combating Regulatory Overwhelm

Entrepreneurs, business owners and managers across the country are fighting the overwhelming feeling of being buried under the responsibility of ever increasing regulation. Threats to the employer are greater than ever. While unions are pushing to maintain current pay and benefits and our government is quibbling to the point of inaction, maybe a good thing, employers are feeling like a lamb surrounded by lions.

The regulatory burden of regular mandatory reporting and collections of garnishments, income taxes, sales taxes, as well as retirement plans, health insurance plans and possibly associated savings accounts just scratches the surface of the mountainous responsibility faced by those in small business.

Employers are caught in the cross fire. At the risk of belaboring the topic here are some examples:

• An employee in a regulated business is disgruntled. They haven’t been performing well and the associated corrective action was upsetting. They feel that the associated reduction of hours is sinful so they call the regulatory agency that is to assure appropriate operations and with a slight twist of the truth and total anonymity the regulatory agency shows up and spends two days looking for the sin. Unfounded and misrepresented the agency goes back only to file a report that nothing was found to be a problem. But while they were there they did notice something else of concern.

Two days plus of state employee time, two days plus of business time, rumors caused by the investigation and all at taxpayer and the business’ expense.

• An employer needs good employees so they run an ad in the paper. A qualified employee comes in to make one of the two weekly application contacts required to maintain their unemployment. The manager on duty asks the applicant for an interview. The applicant explains they aren’t really interested in a job they are just making the contact to keep their unemployment. Maybe they will be back when it runs out. Then all employers are hit with higher unemployment rates.

There are endless examples of these kinds of stories across multiple industries. They may have to do with property or general liability insurance, they may have to do with local, state or federal building codes. They might have to do with federal regulations like FMLA, ERISSA, OSHA, COBRA, EPA, ADA, and so on. Every specific industry has a laundry list of regulatory agencies with oversight.

Some entrepreneurs struggle with this more than others because they own or manage business in multiple industries. Bill Burch is one of these entrepreneurs, but Burch did something different. He created a business to provide services to his own businesses which grew to do the same for other businesses. His firm’s name is Commercial Resources, Inc., nicknamed CRI. It is operated to help reduce the overall burden to the entrepreneur by providing the most efficient way for a small business owner to outsource areas of frustration that are almost impossible for a small business to become expert in. They do this and do it better and more cost effectively than anyone else. They also understand where other entrepreneurs are coming from, because they operate 18 entities themselves.

When asked how CRI provided economical and efficient services he said, “If you could look under the hood, you would see why.” The companies he owns and/or manages have the same needs most every other company needs. CRI by nature provides everything all of his companies need relative to bookkeeping, accounting, human resources, and marketing. The managers of each of the businesses drive the services just as business owners drive their services. When they take on a new client they are treated as good as or better than CRI treats themselves. They don’t change the machine. They simply do for them what Bill wants done for his companies, fast, efficient, back office support on demand and at a lower cost.

Back to the original point, the business owner or manager needs ways to offload the burden of regulation so they can do what they need to do to make money which is the reason most get into business in the first place.

Clearly businesses have other options. Accounting, marketing and professional employer organizations abound. Choosing a company aside, it is important to recognize the world we are doing business in isn’t the world our parents and mentors grew up in. It is vastly different with unheard of regulation and risk. Outsourcing is becoming a necessity and can make a very positive difference at that.

For questions Burch can be reached at billburch@commercialresources.info. CRI does not have a sales staff, another reason rates can be lower so you aren’t going to get sales calls or pressure. You will get an understanding ear and who couldn’t use that in today’s world?

Success Can Happen Anywhere

It was 1996 and the successful founder of Cline, Davis and Mann, Inc., now arguably the world’s largest pharmaceutical advertising agency, was returning home for a trip to visit his elderly mother, Lucile.  He made numerous trips back home to visit the parents he cared for so. 

After escorting them around the world during their early retirement, Morgan Cline’s dad had passed away and his mom lived at home with around the clock care provided by her son.

It was during one of these trips home in 1996 that Cline recognized the deteriorating and vacant home of an old family friend of his parents.  This home would prove to be the first project of his in Centerville and wouldn’t be the last- not by a long shot.  His brother Gary wanted to return home as a recent retiree from teaching and this would be a great place.

As the house was nearing completion, a landmark on the historic and notably large town square was being slated for demolition.  The community had written it off.  Once a regional center, Centerville, Iowa was dying as industry weakened and the gorgeous rolling hills of Iowa were not producing the wealth that flatter crop producing land was.  At the heart of the town square was The Continental Hotel.  With its collapsing roof, broken windows, piles of garbage and debris, it was three stories of antiquated liability that no one in Iowa’s third poorest county could afford to adopt.

The Continental in some ways wasn’t unlike many other large regional hotels from the turn of the prior century.  In other ways it was.  The Continental had seen more than its share of historically significant figures.  Even Iowa’s own Simon Estes was a native of the community and had worked at The Continental, along with his father.

So the decision was made and The Continental was adopted being pulled from the edge of the abyss.  Two million dollars later, it reopened on August 15, 1997 and one of the region’s gems was reborn.

It was just before the hotel opened that Cline learned the manager he had hired had a change of heart and was planning to resign.  From his high rise office at 450 Lexington in Manhattan, he scrambled to find a replacement.  Who could he get to run the hotel?  According to Cline, “I called some people I knew including my sister and the construction manager who was finishing the restoration asking them, ‘Who do you know that could run The Continental?’ and repeatedly I heard, ‘Bill Burch’ so I got his number and the rest is history.”

Burch recalls the contact, “I was in Utah being trained as a facilitator for Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and received a couple messages from Morgan Cline.  I only knew him as the man that was restoring The Continental.” “When I returned home and called him I was more than a little shocked to hear he was interested in visiting with me about the prospect of managing.”

History will show that not only did Burch and Cline come to an agreement one August Sunday in 1997; the two would eventually change Centerville in a notably significant way.  “I was deeply involved in the community and on a number of (too many) boards and committees.  I was the president of our local Chamber that year and was going to more than 50 meetings a month trying to do everything possible to change the place I called home, for the better.  One day after working with Morgan for a short while the light went on.  Why not shift my efforts from struggling with all of these meetings and community leadership roles, and dedicate that effort to him?  He is a super guy, has a lot to teach me, and he financially can do anything he wants to do.  This guy could save our community!”

So began a partnership that some would claim saved the region.

There is a lot written about Cline’s contributions and his efforts to save historic buildings and put businesses in them that could give them a life indefinitely.  His contribution is unheard of and likely more should and will be written.  There is not much written about Burch or what quietly appears to be the next big thing Centerville will experience beyond Cline’s impact, which will be hard to match.

Behind the scenes Burch scrambled to keep up with his boss’s willingness to do one project after another.  Trapped in one of the most depressed areas of the state with a declining population and seriously declining retail sales, he knew that the current use of and fees from service firms were going to strangle the company.  In addition, the number of employees was growing and with nothing but very small businesses, getting health insurance, doing payroll, and organizing benefits was going to prove nearly impossible and financially detrimental.

“I not only knew I had to do something different, I knew I had to do it fast and it had to be terribly effective or the machine would slow and our opportunities would grind to a halt.  There had to be a way to act like a big business by combining all of our small businesses” he shared.  That is exactly what he did.

Burch started a different entity; a company called Commercial Resources, Inc. and with Cline’s mentorship and blessing, Commercial Resources, Inc. became a back office powerhouse.  Burch’s vision was to create a hybrid business combing the best of what accounting firms, professional employer organizations and consulting firms could offer, but in a woven way that enhanced efficiency and focused on the entrepreneur’s perspective.

Burch drove CRI to organize all of the accounting, human resource/payroll/PEO, basic marketing and other typical office support and procedures into a well-oiled machine.  To track the time of the CRI staff so the expense of the office could be split in a fair pro-rata way between all of the companies, new software was purchased and new systems developed.  The company was deeply committed to asking how it could do things more efficiently.

While other firms anchor their fixed rate models to capture margin from developing efficiencies, Burch wanted to motivate not only his staff but his clients to be more efficient for their own good so he refused the traditional systems of billing and chose a straight time/rate system.  The more efficient the client is the better the result and the lower the bill. 

Rachel Hoffman, Vice-president and Executive Director explain, “Our goal is to earn a long-term relationship.  Our clients want nothing different from their businesses than Bill wants from his and Mr. Cline’s.  It is only prudent to challenge administrative costs including what CRI does.”

At the same time Burch was starting Commercial Resources, the duo started to partner on a few businesses.  Before long they shared ownership in businesses including a property holding company, an assisted living community, a nursing home and an appliance store.  Burch was as driven as any business owner to keep administrative overhead to a minimum confessing, “We haven’t always been as successful as we would have liked.  There has been a lot of trial and error.  The personalities and the abilities of different business managers proved awkward especially with our very unique situation.”

Early on, Burch gambled and promoted an unknown to the leadership position at Commercial Resources, Rachel Hoffman.  Hoffman would in effect step up to take the reins so Burch could continue concentration on the continually growing family of projects.  With Hoffman’s work ethic, intelligence and spirit combined with her commitment to “on time as promised,” Commercial Resources continued to strengthen.  As business peers started to learn about CRI’s model, they started to ask if the same services and systems could be made available to them and that is how CRI started its ascension.

Now Commercial Resources is a quietly growing business service firm not only earning the appreciation of its entrepreneurial clients, but also garnering the attention of job seekers in the area.  Hoffman shared, “We aren’t easy to work for.  We have a unique culture that combines very bright people, very hard work and long hours with fun and deep appreciation for each other.  You can’t just be smart, or just be kind, or just be a hard worker to make it here.  You have to be all three and more.  We’ve developed a team of professionals that get what an entrepreneur needs and expects.”

Combining the services of an accounting firm, professional employer organization, and other services in a totally unique way driven solely by the needs of the entrepreneur changes the landscape and seems to be a potential game changer in an industry that some would call stodgy.  If Burch has it his way, while they are changing an industry they will change the community.  It is his vision to employ over 100 people in CRI’s offices alone.  Between Burch and Cline, they already employ 150. 

Appanoose County has even more going for it than Cline and Burch.  The county also captured the new development of Iowa’s first destination state park resort, Honey Creek Resort.  Fifty million dollars later, Centerville and Appanoose County seemingly better than doubled the benefits provided by Cline’s efforts. 

So what’s next?  Burch smiles as he shrugs and says, “We’ll see.”  For now Burch says he plans to honor and maintain Cline’s legacy and build on it and continue in his footsteps.