Small Mobile Company Takes on Big Haiti Jobs

With a little more than a hundred employees, DRC, Inc. a company founded and based in Mobile is taking on big jobs for the Haitian relief effort. It is perhaps the most difficult job the company has undertaken in its more than twenty year existence, according to Vice President Buddy Persons.

"We worked on Katrina, we've been to Kuwait and Somalia, so we've seen some bad things. And this is bad," he said of the Haiti situation.

DRC was the first disaster relief company in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake, due largely to the fact that they were already there, says Mark Stafford, DRC's Chief Operating Officer. Since 2006 the company had been providing housing and life support camps in support of the building of the U.S. Embassy. Today they are charged with the arduous task of recovering bodies from one of the country's most popular hotels, which may have contained ten to fifteen Americans when it collapsed. Persons says the company is also working with the national banking system to recovery bodies and valuables from their buildings that collapsed.

Due to its relationship with the Haitian government and contract workers on the ground, the company is also involved in debris removal, demolition and providing temporary housing. They have used their aircraft to transport orphans and doctors between Haiti and South Florida.

There is no doubt that DRC has a 'hands on' approach when it comes to the relief efforts in Haiti. Company founder Bob Isakson called his Mobile headquarters twice from Haiti during the course of my interview with CEO Stafford, VP Persons, and VP Chuck Priuer. As Priuer said, "When Haiti calls, we listen."