We recently connected with Justin Turley and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Justin thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about serving the underserved.
Most people don’t think about what happens with a scene after a horrible incident such as the death of a loved one. When the police have done their job, the morticians have come and gone, who cleans up the mess left after a suicide/homicide, or even an undiscovered death?
My business specializes in biohazard cleanups, such as, suicides, homicides, undiscovered deaths, and even hoarding situations. We are very aware of what the family is dealing with, and our goal is to help remove some of the worry about how to get the room or house back to normal, and even help the families get the insurance claim filed with their homeowners insurance. Bio-One is the only company in Southeast Idaho that specializes in these situations, and we do everything we can to help the family through these tragic events.
Justin, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I started Bio-One in February of 2018, because I saw a need in this field, and wanted to help families who deal with these situations. My father has been the County Coroner in Twin Falls for many years, and he has told me many stories of when a suicide or even homicide happens, the family is responsible to get the cleanup taken care of once the Police and First Responders have left. In many instances, the family ended up handling the cleanup themselves. I felt that should not be on their shoulders, and that is just adding more trauma to an already traumatic situation. Our goal is to clean and put the house back together so it looked like the incident never happened in the first place.
One question we always get is, how much does this cost? Or who pays for this service? Most instances are covered by homeowners insurance, so as long as they can get us the information for the policy, we help get the claim started, and covered by insurance.
Let’s move on to buying businesses – can you talk to us about your experience with business acquisitions?
My brother, Joseph Turley, and I purchased a small business in Lehi, UT back in October 2018. The name is PipeView Services. We specialize in inspecting, cleaning, and re-lining sewer lines from 4″ residential lines, to large diameter pipe for city main lines, and storm drains. The acquisition of the company took many months, and was a pretty arduous process. We qualified for an SBA loan, and also had to put 10% for the purchase.
Once we took over the company, there was quite the learning curve to learn the industry, and what we needed to do in order to bring in new business, and also keep our existing contractors from going to competitors. We would not have been able to do it and keep the business up and running without a great team in place. We have almost quadrupled the size of the company, and have more expansion plans for continued growth.
Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?
Along with my Bio-One here in Idaho Falls, I also opened a Bio-One location in Albuquerque, NM. I opened that location with two cousins I have who lived down in the area at the time. After about 6 months they both ended up moving away, and I was left with a business multiple states away, and no one to run it. It took a few years to find the right team and get things running smoothly, but it is now a booming business, and we have had continual growth over the last 3 years.
