Listed FEMA FZD Contractor, Established in 1988

History: Flood Clearing House was founded by James R. Quinn, PhD in 1988. Dr. Quinn combined his years of experience as a Regional Director with a contracting firm that was responsible for training WYO agents to facilitate flood insurance under the NFIP guidelines with expertise gained while serving on local Urban Planning Commissions to establish FCH carefully in compliance with the intended operating practices established by the NFIP and by FEMA. Dr. Quinn retired in 1996 but remained available as a consultant to the new owner of FCH until late in 2002.

Current: In 1996, ownership of Flood Clearing House was transferred to Donald W. Curtis and the offices were relocated to Arvada CO. Mr. Curtis had been working with FCH as a contracted consultant responsible for implementing computer technologies into the daily operating procedures. Mr. Curtis was carefully selected by Dr. Quinn because of his vast experience in the engineering and design field. Among his experience, Mr. Curtis lists over 30 years in working with maps, property plats, survey data and documents, legal descriptions, etc. FCH offices remain under the ownership of Mr. Curtis in its Arvada CO offices.

Methodology: Flood Clearing House continues to rely on the manual method of making zone determinations using primarily the paper Flood Insurance Rate Maps. Computer technologies are implemented strongly in support of the manual procedures with internet, database, graphics design softwares and other technologies being utilized. All certification data are kept in a custom data base and can be easily recalled. While computer technologies are ever-present and remain a growing entity at FCH, automated flood zone determinations are not available. Zone certification results are transmitted to the customer via email, fax or mail. Unless complications arise, most properties are resolved and the certification results returned to the customer on the same business day. Perhaps unique are the full-color clear and concise overlay documents that often appear on the back of FCH flood certificates. These are provided when the zone status is questionable and needs to be substantiated. These overlays are especially valuable when FCH is called upon to provide a second opinion on a property.