Bill Hull has, as they say, “seen things.” Homes and hotels ravaged. Entire highways torn apart. Sensitive situations he calls “biological disasters.” Sights many people have only seen in movies.
At first, Hull’s work may seem a long way from his experience at BYU Marriott, where he earned a BA in human resources in 1990. Though he enjoyed his classes, Hull wasn’t sure he wanted to go a traditional route with his degree. “I wasn’t finding anything that got me excited as far as going into the HR field,” he says. “I had worked construction to pay for school, so I just kept at it.” His skills in construction and carpentry helped him find work immediately after he and his wife, Melanie Sue Bevell, moved to Kansas City, Missouri.
After doing remodeling for several years and briefly going into business for himself, Hull was working in installation service at Heartland Barns when the company went bankrupt in 2005. He was let go the day his family moved into a brand-new custom home. At about that same time, nearly eight hundred miles away, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the Gulf Coast, and thousands—including Hull—traveled to the area to provide relief.
While aiding in the cleanup, he joined LMA Roofing, where he managed residential roofing projects and found another field he both enjoyed and excelled in. “I had a ball,” he says. “I had the ability to help people and make a living, and there was the adrenaline from knowing that you’re doing good things.”
While Hull was primarily working with materials such as cement and wood in disaster restoration, he was also taking care of people. “I learned a couple of things while I was helping after Hurricane Katrina,” he recalls. “First, everything depends on trust. If people trust you to take care of them, they’ll take a leap of faith and let you help them; if they don’t trust you, everything just shuts down. Second, you have to listen to people. You may be a total stranger, but they’ve been through trauma, and they just want to tell you their story.”
After returning to Kansas City, Hull worked at Repairs Unlimited as a project manager, salesman, and estimator before accepting a position as a project manager with ServiceMaster Recovery Management in 2015. In that new role, he assessed property damage, communicated with building owners and their insurance carriers, and helped victims of all kinds of catastrophes, including floods and fires. “We liked to give people hope and confidence that things were going to work out and then make it happen,” he says. In March 2020 he joined Newman Construction Consulting as a managing consultant, where he helps insurance companies and their clients estimate the cost of losses, determine the time frame for repairs, and arbitrate disputes.
Some of his favorite projects have included restoring the oldest operating family farmhouse west of the Mississippi after hailstorm damage and helping a widow repair her basement after a flood. “She was determined to do the repairs on her own, but she wanted someone to guide her,” Hull says. “It was fun to watch her become confident.”
Because it’s important in restoration work to demonstrate trustworthiness, Hull has always prioritized ethics in his work. “What I’ve always remembered from BYU and the classes at byu Marriott is there was always an understanding that you need to be honest and fair,” he says.
Hull has three children, loves living in the rural Midwest, and continues to put people first. “I love being able to help people after disasters,” he says. “You get to know a lot of amazing people with a lot of different backgrounds. It’s just extremely rewarding work.”
