Meet the Team - Tidemark Water Damage Houston

Meet the Houston Team Behind Tidemark Water Damage Houston

Water doesn’t punch a clock in this city. It moves through slab foundations in Meyerland, pushes up through pier-and-beam in the Heights, and sits in sheetrock along Braes Bayou until somebody finds the tide mark and dries past it. The crew we’ve built in Houston since 2006 understands that. Every tech who pulls up to a flooded kitchen or a mold-stained attic in this metro carries the same IICRC, RIA, and IFA credentials, runs the same Dri-Eaz, Phoenix, XPOWER, B-Air, and Injectidry equipment, and answers to the same person who signs the check: Rick Sumner, Owner. No layers. No pass-offs.

Our People

Marcus G., Lead Water Damage Technician

Marcus has run water mitigation crews in Houston for 14 years, most of that in the flood-prone neighborhoods along Brays and Greens Bayou. He holds IICRC certifications in Water Damage Restoration and Applied Structural Drying, and he’s the one who reads the moisture map before a single fan gets placed. Marcus is the guy you want in an attic in August: he’s methodical, he sweats through it, and he doesn’t leave until the readings say dry, not “looks dry.” When he’s not pulling baseboards, he’s rebuilding a 1972 Ford F-100 in his garage in Spring Branch.

Elena R., Senior Mold Remediation Specialist

Elena has spent nine years handling mold jobs across Houston’s older housing stock, where humidity and decades of construction quirks create problems newer homes don’t have. She’s RIA-certified in mold remediation and containment, and she spends more time explaining the written scope to homeowners than anyone else on the team. That patience isn’t just politeness; it’s the C.A.R.E. standard we run on: explain the price before the work. Elena grew up in the East End, speaks fluent Spanish, and keeps a raised garden bed going year-round despite what Houston summers do to tomatoes.

DeShawn T., Service Coordinator

DeShawn is the voice on the phone when a call comes in at 2 a.m. from a homeowner in Katy watching water rise across the tile. He’s been coordinating emergency response for restoration crews for over a decade, and he’s got a dispatcher’s calm that doesn’t sound rehearsed. DeShawn knows the equipment inventory cold, tracks which truck carries the XPOWER air movers and which one has the Phoenix dehumidifiers, and he makes sure every tech rolls out with shoe covers and drop cloths already loaded. He’s a Houston native, a die-hard Astros fan, and the first person in the office every morning even after the long nights.

Audrey P., Apprentice Technician

Audrey joined us two years ago after spending her first career in retail management, and she’s the reason our equipment room looks like a surgical supply closet. She’s currently working toward her IICRC Water Damage Restoration Technician certification while training under Marcus on extraction and drying setup. Audrey is detail-driven in a way that matters on this work: she’s the one who documents every piece of affected material before removal and makes sure the before-and-after photos are shot before the crew rolls out. She lives in the Heights with a rescue mutt named Puddles, whom she named before she ever worked a day in water restoration.

Rick Sumner, Owner

Rick started Tidemark Water Damage Houston in 2006, and he still walks jobs weekly, not because he has to, but because he wants to see the tide mark himself. He’s IICRC-certified and has spent nearly two decades learning what Houston water does to Houston homes: how clay soil shifts and sends moisture up through the slab in the Heights, how salt air and Gulf humidity slow drying in Clear Lake, and how older pier-and-beam foundations in the Third Ward hide moisture in places a thermal camera misses. Rick writes the way he talks on a job site: steady, specific, no filler. A wet wall never fixes itself faster by waiting. Ask before you move or touch anything. Shoe covers go on at the door. He built the 365-Day Done Right Promise because he’s had to remake calls he didn’t have to make, and he’d rather do the work again than argue about what “done” means.

One Standard, Every Job

Every truck that rolls out of our Houston shop carries the same promise. Background-checked, uniformed techs show up with shoe covers and drop cloths already on board, because protecting floors and furnishings isn’t an upsell, it’s Step One. The price comes in writing before any equipment gets unloaded. Technicians credentialed through IICRC, RIA, and IFA run professional-grade drying equipment from Dri-Eaz, Phoenix, XPOWER, B-Air, and Injectidry, then photograph the clean-up before the crew leaves. And the 365-Day Done Right Promise stands behind every water, mold, and fire job. Same standard in Meyerland as in Katy. That’s the deal we’ve run since 2006, and nobody on this page is interested in lowering the bar.

Written by Rick Sumner, Owner at Tidemark Water Damage Houston, serving the greater Houston area since 2006.