Meet the Team - DryMark Restoration El Cajon

Meet the El Cajon Team Behind DryMark Restoration El Cajon

We’re the crew that shows up when water’s still moving through your walls or mold’s turned a bathroom into a hazmat zone. Every person on this page has been background-checked, licensed, and insured before they ever pulled into your driveway in El Cajon. What holds us together isn’t a handbook - it’s The Haven Standard, Clause 1 through 7, and the fact that none of us can stand watching a homeowner lose money to a documentation gap that should’ve been closed on day one.

Our People

Alicia Brennan, Owner

I started Back to Dry in 2011 after six years as a claims adjuster, and I built this company around one problem I couldn’t stop seeing: homeowners with legitimate damage getting denied because the restoration company didn’t document the loss properly. I’ve watched a $14,000 water damage claim get cut to $3,200 because the crew never logged psychrometric data - the temperature, relative humidity, and vapor pressure readings that prove a structure was actually dry. That’s not happening on my jobs. I still walk sites personally when the loss is over 1,000 square feet or involves Category 3 water. I carry a Tramex moisture encounter, and I’ll show you the readings myself. Off the clock, I’m usually restoring a 1973 Airstream I bought too optimistically; currently stuck on the plumbing, which is humbling for someone in this trade.

Marcus T., Lead Technician

Marcus has been drying structures for eleven years, and he can walk into a flooded kitchen in Fletcher Hills and tell you within ten minutes whether we’re looking at a three-day dry or a seven-day rebuild. He’s IICRC-certified in Water Damage Restoration (WRT) and Applied Structural Drying (ASD), and he’s the person who trains our apprentices on how to place an Injectidry hose without destroying baseboard. His specialty is complex multilevel losses - the kind where water travels down wall cavities and shows up two rooms away from the source. He documents every placement with a photo, a moisture reading, and a timestamp. On weekends he’s at Lake Jennings with his two sons, teaching them to fish badly; his words, not mine.

Dana R., Senior Installer

Dana handles the reconstruction side once drying is complete, which means she’s the one who makes sure your drywall, flooring, and trim match what was there before the loss. She’s particularly good with historic homes in the older neighborhoods near downtown El Cajon, where matching a 1950s plaster texture or finding replacement tile for a mid-century bathroom can make or break a job. Dana came to us from a high-end residential remodeling company, and she brought an eye for finish work that most restoration crews simply don’t have. She’s also our go-to for explaining the rebuild timeline to homeowners who’ve already been displaced for two weeks and are running out of patience. She has a dog named Bucket who accompanies her to supply runs when the lumber yard allows it; they don’t always.

James K., Service Coordinator

James answers the phones that ring at 2 a.m. when a water heater fails in Granite Hills, and he’s the person who makes sure a crew is dispatched with the right equipment before they leave the warehouse. He’s been with us four years, and he’s developed a system for triaging calls that I haven’t seen matched anywhere in the network: he asks five questions, gets a photo if the homeowner can send one, and has a preliminary scope and equipment list ready when the technician arrives. He’s also the person who follows up with your adjuster, sends the photo documentation packet, and makes sure the drying logs are formatted to your carrier’s specifications. James is studying for his IICRC Fire and Smoke Restoration certification; he already handles the scheduling and documentation for our fire jobs, and he wants to start walking those sites too. He makes pour-over coffee at the office that the rest of us pretend to enjoy because he’s enthusiastic about it.

Elena V., Apprentice Technician

Elena joined us in 2023 after completing a construction technology program at Grossmont College, and she’s currently working toward her WRT certification while handling equipment deployment, moisture mapping, and site documentation under Marcus’s supervision. She’s already developed a reputation for catching details others miss - a discolored grout line that indicates secondary moisture, a supply line with corrosion suggesting imminent failure. Her background in CAD drafting means she can read architectural plans quickly, which helps on larger commercial losses where understanding the original building envelope matters. Elena grew up in El Cajon and knows the local building stock from the inside; she can tell you which developments from the 1980s used polybutylene piping without looking it up. She runs half-marathons and has a frustratingly consistent pace.

One Standard, Every Job

DryMark Restoration El Cajon operates under The Haven Standard, the same framework that governs every independently owned and operated location in the Back to Dry network. That means Haven Standard, Clause 1: a written price before any work starts, delivered to you and to your adjuster if you’re filing a claim. Clause 4: a documented photo record on every visit, uploaded to your file, not held hostage for an upsell. Clause 7: the 365-Day Done Right Promise, signed and stamped, not mentioned verbally and forgotten.

We don’t have different rules for different customers. The same Marcus who dries a flooded condo in Bostonia uses the same documentation protocol, the same Dri-Eaz and Phoenix equipment, and the same IICRC-compliant moisture logging that we deploy on a commercial loss in the city center. Your insurance company recognizes this standard. We’ve built our reputation in El Cajon on the fact that our invoices get paid because our documentation is complete, not because we negotiated harder.

If you’ve received a written estimate from another restoration company, bring it to us. We’ll review it under our Free Second Opinion policy, no charge, and we’ll tell you exactly what’s documented correctly and what gaps might cost you at claims time. We’ve been doing this since 2011. The standard hasn’t changed.

Written by Alicia Brennan, Owner at DryMark Restoration El Cajon, serving El Cajon since 2011.