Business View Magazine | Volume 8, Issue 8

115 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 8, ISSUE 8 PLEXOS GROUP LLC “We’ve been lucky to experience some pretty rapid growth,” Odom recounts. “In less than 10 years, we’ve supported approximately $32 billion in disaster recovery funds, and managed to attract some of the leading experts in the sector – former executives from Fortune 500 companies, officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and many others. Currently, we are a 400-plus employee firm, but we’re slated to have a little over 600 workers in the coming months as we continue to grow our programs across the country. We have people and projects right now in New York, Boston, New Orleans, Florida, Colorado, California, the US Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.” One of the reasons why Plexos Group has had such success is its focus on having an extremely agile team – one that can scale rapidly. That’s allowed the firm to take on projects and solve the needs of its clients as, and when, they arise. “In the disaster recovery world, there are really two phases,” says Odom. “There’s the response phase that occurs immediately after the event and could last several months, perhaps even up to a year. Then, there’s the recovery phase, which is more of a long-term approach. Generally, what happens in the recovery phase is that FEMA will come in and fund immediate repairs to housing and infrastructure to get the community back operating. In addition to that, there are Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds, as well as Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, that allow houses and infrastructure to continue being restored.” The recovery phase of each disaster can vary hugely but often takes many years. For example, Hurricane Katrina occurred more than a decade ago, but some recovery projects are still being administered in relation to that event. “We like to cover everything in our disaster recovery program,” Odom comments. “For instance, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, we set up the President & CEO, David Odom