Garage door industry magazine for garage door dealers, garage door manufacturers, garage door distributors, garage door installers, loading docks, garage door operators and openers, gates, and tools for the door industry.
Issue link: https://idoi.epubxp.com/i/177021
DoorDealerDialog (continued from page 17) assist Mr. Van Buren, the latter was self-trained and able to manage the company. Right up through the 1990 economic recession. Then, there was a major food that put much of the downtown Santa Barbara area under water. Also in Van Buren's inaugural year as a door dealer, a major wildfre destroyed 650 homes. None of this played into Van Buren's plans. "It's not like these natural disasters just damaged doors and we were running around putting new doors in," Van Buren recalled. "There were so many houses completely destroyed – and I mean gone; they weren't there anymore – it took a while for that to turn into activity. Plus, there was so much out-of-state insurance money coming into the area, you just lost track of the day-to-day things, and at some point realized that we weren't getting any calls from local customers." Californians are resilient by nature, and as a business man with a new venture to grow, Don Van Buren was not deterred by the affictive turn of events. He worked through the recession and natural disasters and built upon the company's reputation for quality and professionalism. "We are more set-up to sell and install an $8,000 Carriage House Door than a cheap pan door," Van Buren said. "There are times when someone really just wants something to fll the opening, and that's fne. And there are cases when a customer doesn't really need the nicest, most expensive door we have to sell them because they might be the only people who see it. So, we try to help people fnd out what they really need and what is going to make them feel good when the job is fnished." Continued on page 21 Van Buren says celebrities are no different from any other type of customer, except that in some cases you don't know who they are, or you have to sign a confdentiality agreement before entering their property. But, others, like Kevin Costner or famed director Robert Zemeckis, will watch you performing the work, or even jump in and help. 18