Sonoma County disaster-cleanup firm Allied Restoration returns to Inc. 5000 fast-growth list

Since Michael Tabayoyon in 2012 restarted a family business of cleaning up and repairing homes and buildings after disasters, Allied Restoration Company has found a lot of work to do after the Napa quake then North Bay wildfires and floods.

That propelled the company revenues, qualifying it to debut on the Inc. 5000 national list of fast-growing companies in 2018, ranked No. 1,843 with 244% growth in 2014–2017, finishing with $2.0 million. That’s the business magazine’s chief ranking metric.

Allied Restoration returned to the list this year at No. 3,448, with 108% growth over three years, ending 2019 with just under $3 million.

But this year since the coronavirus pandemic, he’s hoping to fulfill the catchphrase of Great Recession: “flat is the new up.”

“We do a lot of commercial-type projects, such as retail and schools, and a lot of them are closed,” said Tabayoyon, 38. “They still have issues we would deal with, but that’s gone down.”

Normally, schools or shopping malls can’t afford the down time of being closed to repair the damage from a burst water line, but the California shelter-at-home order extended for both venues.

And work on home restorations also has been affected by the virus.

“On residential type of things which we’re minimizing to focus on commercial, because people are afraid to let strangers into their homes,” Tabayoyon said.

When the pandemic started in March, Allied Restoration pivoted to offering a service to sanitize workspaces for the COVID-19 virus. The staff, which varies from 10–15 depending on the job, was trained for Occupational Safety and Health Administration hazardous waste operations and emergency response certification, and the company stocked up on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-approved cleaning products and personal protective equipment.

The plan was to build on the company’s work with the potentially dangerous contagions in raw sewage to deal with the new threat at assisted-living centers and for existing large commercial clients. But the phone hasn’t been ringing for that service as much as Tabayoyon has expected.

“I don’t know if many are doing it in-house or haven’t reopened yet,” he said.

But a relatively serendipitous side venture is providing a small but potentially lucrative lift to sagging revenues in the pandemic. In late 2018, Tabayoyon launched Allied Rental Company, offering portable generators of various sizes.

That paid off quickly with the public safety power shut-offs last fall and looming this year.

“I didn’t even foresee the problem we would be having, but at the same time it is good fortune we started to build that up when we did,” he said.

While Allied Rental Company currently accounts for just 10% of overall revenue, he’s expecting that to be a bigger contributor once more units are added.

Allied Rental currently owns 10 Multiquip generators, ranging in output from 20 kilowatts up to 1 megawatt, and has formed partnerships with companies across the country to bring in more as demand allows. The company also is a dealer for Multiquip, Generac, Taylor Power Systems, Winco and other manufacturers.

The company gained regional attention last fall, when a 20-kilowatt unit was brought in to power Marin County independent grocer Scotty’s Market during the power shut-offs that darkened most of the county for days amid high fire danger last fall, KRON-TV reported.

Currently, half the generators are committed for placements at businesses for much of the fall. The rental rate depends on output, ranging from $300–$2,000 a day, with discounts for longer periods.

Interest has come from not only grocery stores, where hundreds of thousands of dollars in perishable inventory can be at stake, but also assisted-living centers to keep air-conditioning on during hot days.

Allied Restoration’s service area covers Sonoma, Marin and San Francisco counties. It was started in 1998 in the Seattle area by the Tabayoyon family but closed some years later. Michael Tabayoyon restarted the company after moving to Petaluma, and the company’s office relocated from Novato to Petaluma at the end of last year.

Jeff Quackenbush (jquackenbush@busjrnl.com, 707-521-4256) covers wine, construction and real estate.