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Mike McCurdie, owner of SAFEbuilt, was honored with a 2008-2009 “Bravo” award on March 11, 2009. Surrounded by employees and other nominees and winners, McCurdie accepted the annual recognition sponsored by the Northern Colorado Business Report.
| SAFEbuilt services are attractive during peak building periods and in low volume times like the current recession. McCurdie and his staff are successful in part because they anticipate the market and re-position their services accordingly. |
A chemical engineer with a background in the semiconductor industry, McCurdie was ready for a change. In 1999, he purchased Colorado Inspection Agency, a small organization that provided building department services to public agencies without a full-time building department staff. The Town of Windsor was the first client and the original location of the corporate office.
By 2007, the business changed its name to SAFEbuilt to support both geographical growth and to better identify the ultimate goal of building inspections – a safe building.
Over the years, the organization has grown and evolved. SAFEbuilt services are attractive during peak building periods and in low volume times like the current recession. McCurdie and his staff are successful in part because they anticipate the market and re-position their services accordingly.
McCurdie said the concept of governments contracting for building services from a private company is still “quite unique” but is starting to catch on. “Nationwide, it’s not the standard, but more and more as government looks at ways to reduce costs we’re finding they’re more and more interested in our services,” he said.
McCurdie also provides a positive culture for his organization. He believes not only in posting core values on the wall, but living every day by those values. An obvious example was how he and his team responded both with manpower and dollars to a devastating tornado that ripped through Windsor, Colorado, in May of 2008.
With his vision, SAFEbuilt now has operations throughout Colorado, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Washington and nearly 70 employees. In 2008, SAFEbuilt supported over $1.5 billion in residential and commercial building valuations, performed 5,125 plan reviews and approximately 85,000 inspections.
