The call you never want to receive came without warning.

Darren’s phone started ringing during an IICRC Board meeting. A close friend said to him, “Did you know your son was involved in a serious accident, and he’s being air flighted to a Nashville hospital burn unit?"

Credit: PuroClean

Darren Hudema's oldest son had suffered a devastating accident. Severe burns covered more than 40% of his body. Third-degree burns. A burn unit in Nashville. Weeks of treatment. The kind of uncertainty that hollows out a family.

Messages came in. Support arrived. Professionals from across the restoration industry, many of whom Darren had never met and most of whom didn't even know his son, stepped forward without being asked when they heard what had happened. Just people showing up the way you hope someone will when the worst thing happens.

Nearly a year later, Darren's son and his wife welcomed their second child, a daughter. A chapter of hardship gave way, quietly, to joy.

Darren still thinks about that call, and the year often.

It is one of the reasons he has never stopped giving back. And it is the spirit behind this year’s RIA Volunteer of the Year recognition, an honor that, if you know Darren, he will be the first to redirect toward everyone around him.

Where It Began: A Family That Worked

Darren grew up in a family of eight. His parents ran small janitorial businesses, not because they dreamed of entrepreneurship, but because it was how their six children got fed. Work was not a concept discussed at the dinner table. It was demonstrated, every day, by the people who made the house run.

In 1968, his parents made a decision that required both faith and nerve. They relocated the family from British Columbia to Ontario to serve where the need was greater within their congregation. The janitorial business made that move possible, providing income flexible enough to support a life built around more than just income.

That early lesson lodged itself somewhere permanent: a service business can be more than a livelihood. It can be a vehicle for the life you actually want to live.

Credit: Darren Hudema

A Bicycle, a Stack of Flyers, and a Business

When Darren reached high school, attending a university was not a financial option. He watched graduates struggle to find meaningful work and decided the more interesting question wasn’t how to get a degree, it was where opportunity was hiding that others had overlooked.

He found it in windows.

Without a driver’s license, his only transportation was a bicycle. He printed flyers at school and spent weekends delivering them through neighborhoods. The response was immediate. Within a short time, he was booking 10 to 15 jobs per weekend at $150 to $200 per home, earning $2,000 to $3,000 a month while still in high school.

It was a realization that has shaped how he thinks about business ever since: opportunity is usually where nobody is looking.
 

Credit: Darren Hudema

From Technician to Entrepreneur: The Risk That Defined His Career

After marrying and relocating to Vancouver Island, Darren entered the professional restoration industry. He started as a carpet-cleaning technician, the kind of role where you learn what the work actually is before presuming to lead it, and moved steadily through fire, water, and biohazard losses into project management.

Credit: Darren Hudema

Then came the decision that separates those who talk about owning a business from those who actually do.

He sold his house to fund his own restoration company. At the same time, he invested in his mom and dad’s house by building a basement suite in the unfinished area. It was not a hedge. It was a bet on himself, on the industry, and on what the business could become. When the suite was completed, his family moved into it and worked on building a successful business in a city with a lot of competition. 

The business succeeded. He built it, grew it, and eventually sold it, opening the door to the chapter that has defined the second half of his career: education, training, and industry leadership.

The Mentors Who Shaped the Mission

No career of this length is built alone. Darren is quick to say so.

Early in his development, mentors like Cliff Zlotnik (known as one of the Restoration Industry’s 4 Founding Fathers), Tony Macaluso (IICRC Board member), Tom Hill (Past President and board member of the IICRC), Pat Moffett, and Pete Duncanson (serves as the Vice President of Training and Technical Support for ServiceMaster Brands, and past IICRC Chariman of the Board) didn’t just transfer technical knowledge, they modeled what professional responsibility looks like. They showed him that investing in others wasn’t a distraction from the work. It was the work.

Credit: Darren Hudema

A particularly defining chapter came through his collaboration with Howard Wolf, with whom Darren contributed to the third edition of the ANSI/IICRC S500 Standard and Reference Guide for Professional Water Damage Restoration, more than 30 years ago. That experience made something clear: standards matter, and the people who shape them carry a real responsibility to get them right.

He has never stopped treating that responsibility seriously.

Building PuroClean’s Training Engine

Today, Darren serves as Director of Training and Technical Services for PuroClean, where he leads education for one of the fastest-growing franchise networks in the restoration industry.

Credit: Darren Hudema

When he joined, PuroClean had approximately 225 locations. Under the leadership of Frank Torre and Mark Davis, the network has grown to more than 500 locations across North America. During that same period, average franchise earnings increased fourfold.

Darren does not describe that growth as accidental.

“Education changes businesses, and it changes lives.”

From foundational technical training to advanced commercial large-loss programs, the systems he has helped build are designed to equip franchise owners for the complexity of modern restoration, not just to pass a certification exam, but to perform under pressure in the field.

Serving the Industry Beyond the Day Job

Darren’s professional commitments extend well beyond PuroClean. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the IICRC, the body that sets the certification and standards framework that the entire industry relies on.

He is also a Consensus Body member contributing to the sixth edition of the ANSI/IICRC S500 Standard and Reference Guide for Professional Water Damage Restoration, the same Standard he helped shape more than three decades ago, is now being updated to reflect current science and field reality.

Through the Restoration Industry Association (RIA), he serves on both the Membership Committee and the Advocacy and Government Affairs (AGA) Committee, working to protect the interests of credentialed restoration professionals at the legislative level and helping build the kind of industry cohesion that benefits everyone who works in it.

Credit: Darren Hudema

His standards work extends beyond the restoration-specific bodies as well. Darren serves on two committees within American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) International, Committee F06 on Resilient Floor Coverings and Committee E06 on Performance of Buildings. Both roles keep him directly connected to the testing methodologies, material performance criteria, and building science research that increasingly shape how restoration work is scoped, specified, and evaluated. Where many practitioners consume standards as finished documents, Darren helps write them, ensuring that what gets codified reflects what actually happens in the field, not just what looks clean on paper.

These roles are not résumé items for Darren. They are obligations he takes seriously.

On Being Recognized

When the RIA named Darren as its 2026 Volunteer of the Year, the reaction from those who know him was unsurprising: he immediately began crediting the people around him.

“It’s not an award I was seeking,” he says. “Volunteering has always been about contributing to something bigger than myself.”

For Darren, the recognition represents something larger than any individual achievement, it reflects the collective investment of his mentors, peers, and industry colleagues who have built something worth belonging to. The honor, in his view, belongs to all of them.

What Comes Next

After more than fifty years, from a teenager on a bicycle delivering window-cleaning flyers, to a technician learning restoration from the ground up, to an educator shaping the next generation of franchise professionals and contributing to the standards that govern the entire industry, Darren Hudema remains focused on one thing.

Helping others succeed.

The lessons from his parents are still running underneath everything he does. Work hard. Serve others. Build something that lasts longer than you do.

And remember that the restoration industry, at its best, is not about buildings.

It’s about the people inside them, and the community that shows up when things fall apart.