Meet the Team - Dryden Restoration San Diego

Meet the San Diego Team Behind Dryden Restoration San Diego

We’re not a national franchise with rotating crews you’ll never see twice. The technicians who show up at your door in San Diego are the same people who answer questions about your house two months later. Carl Brandt built this team by hiring people who can talk to a homeowner the way they’d talk to a neighbor: plain language, no scare tactics, and a real number before any work starts. Between them, this crew has handled everything from burst supply lines in Clairemont to smoke-damaged ceilings in Chula Vista.

Our People

Mike R. – Lead Water Damage Technician

Mike has run water mitigation jobs in San Diego for fourteen years, the last eight of them with Dryden. He’s IICRC-certified in water damage restoration and applied structural drying, which means he doesn’t guess at whether a wall cavity is dry – he measures moisture content in the framing and tracks it until the numbers say done. His specialty is psychrometric drying, and he’ll happily explain what that is in about fifteen seconds if you ask. Mike lives in Normal Heights and restores old Honda motorcycles when he’s not pulling baseboards in someone’s kitchen.

“I’ve seen a two-inch supply line turn a downstairs bedroom into a shallow pond in under an hour. The water itself isn’t the hard part. It’s the moisture you can’t see, the stuff working through the drywall and wicking up the insulation.”

Elena V. – Senior Mold Remediation Specialist

Elena leads our mold remediation work in San Diego County. She holds IICRC certification in applied microbial remediation and has spent a decade on the coastal side of this market, where marine air gives mold a head start. She’s the person who will explain why RH – relative humidity – matters more than visible moisture, and what’s actually growing behind that bathroom vanity before you tear it out. Elena grew up in Imperial Beach and ran a residential cleaning company before moving into remediation, so she has strong opinions about what a surface should look like when a job is finished. Ask her about the time a leaky refrigerator in La Jolla turned into a three-room containment job.

Theresa M. – Service Coordinator

Theresa is the voice on the phone when you call Dryden Restoration San Diego at 3 a.m. or 3 p.m. She has worked in restoration dispatch in San Diego since 2011 and knows the difference between “water heater just popped” and “there’s a wet spot on the ceiling” – and she’ll tell you honestly which one needs us now and which one can wait for morning. Theresa coordinates every job from first call through final walkthrough, keeps the written scope and pricing moving, and makes sure the crew shows up when we said we would. She lives near Balboa Park and has two rescue greyhounds that do not understand weekends.

Jesse D. – Restoration Apprentice

Jesse is two years into his restoration training with Dryden, working under Mike and Elena on water extraction, drying setup, and mold containment. He’s already passed his IICRC water restoration technician exam and is currently training toward applied structural drying certification. Jesse grew up in El Cajon and had never heard of a psychrometer before this job – now he can tell you the moisture content of a 2×4 from across the room. He also carries the team’s floor-drying checklist, which matters more than people realize when the claim reviewer asks for documentation.

One Standard, Every Job

Every Dryden Restoration San Diego job follows the same five rules, no matter which technician walks through the door. First, we say the price before the work begins – written, not verbal. Second, we show up in the window we gave you. Third, we leave the job site cleaner than we found it, because you’ve already got enough to deal with. Fourth, every repair carries a written 365-Day Done Right Promise: if a covered repair fails within a year, we come back and correct it at no charge. And fifth, we treat your insurance documentation like it matters, with photo records and moisture readings the adjuster can actually use. That’s the Kingswell Way, and it’s the same standard Carl has held since founding the company in 2005.

Written by Carl Brandt, Owner at Dryden Restoration San Diego, serving San Diego County since 2005.