Meet the Team - Wendell Restoration Hempstead

Meet the Hempstead Team Behind Wendell Restoration Hempstead

We’re the crew that shows up when a pipe lets go at 2 a.m. or a bathroom fan has been quietly feeding mold for a year. Most of us live within 20 minutes of Hempstead, which means we’ve worked on houses we pass every week. What binds this team isn’t a uniform. It’s the shared habit of walking a homeowner through exactly what we’re doing and why, then writing the price down before a single fan gets plugged in. Blake Sorensen has built this crew since 2006, and he still rides along on the tough jobs.

Our People

Blake Sorensen, Owner & Lead Restoration Technician

Blake founded Wendell Restoration Hempstead in 2006, back when most restoration work on Long Island was still done with a wet-vac and a prayer. He earned his reputation the slow way, job by job, through word of mouth from Baldwin to Uniondale. His specialty is psychrometric drying, which means he tracks the air’s moisture level room by room so he knows when a structure is truly dry, not just surface-dry. Blake still writes the scope on the big water losses himself and checks in on every project before it’s closed out. Outside work, he’s usually under a car in his driveway in Hempstead, usually a mid-2000s German sedan that he insists runs better than anything new.

Lena Vasquez, Senior Installer

Lena has spent nine years doing demolition, structural drying, and finish work, and she’s the person we send when a repair has to look like nothing ever happened. She holds IICRC water restoration certification and is the crew’s lead on containment chambers for mold work, which means she builds the sealed plastic barriers that keep spores from drifting through the rest of your house. Lena is particular about seam tape. If you’ve ever watched someone check a level three times, you know her style. Before restoration, she framed houses in Puerto Rico with her father, which is where she got the unteachable sense of how moisture moves through wood.

Marcus T., Service Coordinator

Marcus is usually the first voice you hear when you call Wendell Restoration Hempstead, and he answers in person. He’s not a call center. Marcus works from our Hempstead office and knows what equipment is on which truck, which tech is closest to Uniondale or West Hempstead, and how long the last three jobs in your neighborhood actually took. He spends half his shift keeping homeowners updated with photos and text messages while a job is running, because he can’t stand when people are left wondering. Marcus started with us as an apprentice technician, then found he was better at orchestrating than installing. He still keeps a moisture meter in his car just in case.

Darnell R., Apprentice Technician

Darnell joined the crew two years ago and is working toward his IICRC water restoration certification, though he already runs extraction and air-scrubber setups on his own with a lead’s sign-off. He’s the youngest on the crew and the strongest, which means he hauls the commercial drying equipment we run, including our Phoenix and Dri-Eaz units, in and out of tight Hempstead basements without complaining. Darnell grew up in a house that flooded during Sandy, and he remembers the restoration crew that showed up for his family. He says that’s the whole reason he wanted this job.

One Standard, Every Job

Every person on this crew works to the same three standing rules, and none of them are optional. A written price goes to the homeowner before any work starts, every job gets the 365-Day Done Right Promise in writing, and if a repair fails, we return for a free second visit. That’s the Relay Standard, and it’s the reason we run name-brand equipment like Dri-Eaz, Phoenix, XPOWER, B-Air, and Injectidry rather than whatever rental gear is on sale that week. Our technicians are background-checked and uniformed so you know who’s walking through your door before they arrive. It’s the only way Blake has ever wanted to run a restoration company in Hempstead, and it’s the standard the whole crew is expected to protect on every single job.

Written by Blake Sorensen, Owner at Wendell Restoration Hempstead, serving Hempstead since 2006.