When pulling up to Federal Records Management & Shredding you might not even know there was a business there. It is located in a building with no windows and one locked door that has minimal signage, but rest assured they know you are there. This is a company whose purpose it is to keep your records safe, secure, and private. And when the time comes that those records need to be safely disposed of, these are the people you want doing that for you.
Every business has records of clientele and there are private items on records that can be used to cause all kinds of havoc on a person’s life. Identity theft is a crime that is shared all the time in the news and it seems no matter how carefully a business tries to guard their client’s information sometimes it leaks out. Federal Records Management & Shredding can help you ensure that your business’ client records don’t end up in the wrong hands.
In the early 2000s, John Hanley, President/Owner began working for a shredding company. Then in 2013 Hanley bought the assets and Federal Records Management & Shredding began. When asked what they do, Hanley said, “We do confidential document destruction. And we do records management.”
With today’s regulations, to simply throw documents in the trash is putting you and your company at risk. Rather than guess as to which documents need shredded and which do not, it is a much more secure business practice to use Federal Records Management & Shredding to destroy all records.
Did you know that once your shredded materials are placed in the dumpster they are easy pickings for anyone trying to steal information? Also, did you know that there are computer programs out there that can take that shredded material and put it back together? With Federal Records Management & Shredding all of that worry is eliminated. Using locked containers that they place in your building, once the materials are placed inside, those documents are never out in the open again. Also, when Federal Records Management & Shredding shreds your records they co-mingle other people’s records together with yours to make it virtually impossible for anyone to ever put that information back together again.
Hanley said, “For the shredding we actually cover the whole state of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. We cover a very big area. We do regular service on the shredding which is probably our biggest operation. Once our containers are in place, we set up a schedule with the customer that best meets their needs.”
“The other thing we do here is records management,” continued Hanley. “Records management is actually a lot bigger than most people think. The simple description is that we manage documents for a company that they don’t want to spend the money or resources to manage. If a business has forty or fifty boxes that they need to store somewhere, we are the cheapest and safest alternative. And if the business needs access to their records, we are normally quicker getting the files than the customers themselves. We have a sophisticated bar code tracking system and we pull and retrieve files and boxes weekly and daily if needed.”
Another feature that Federal Records Management & Shredding provides for their customers is quick and timely access to their records when they are needed at any time. “We want to maintain the ability of our customer to get a hold of us almost instantly. That is where we feel our competition falls short. Four of us here release our cell phone numbers. If you call here our Office Manager, Lindy, answers the phone, we do not have an automated system. If a customer leaves a voicemail, that voicemail calls our cell phones until it is answered. We want our customers to know that their records are secure from others but available at any time for them.”
Federal Records Management & Shredding is Fort Wayne’s only full-service, locally owned & operated, AAA certified company that offers both document management & storage, and secure off-site document shredding. Federal Records Management & Shredding is a member of the National Association for International Destruction Companies or NAID. Hanley said, “You can belong to the organization that’s one thing, anyone can belong to it, but to get the AAA certification is quite a feat.”
As Hanley placed a huge binder of material on his desk he continued, “They have a huge list of stuff that you have to go through to be certified. The AAA certification identifies that all employees have met and passed a seven year federal criminal back ground check, random drug tests, employment verification, and that our video surveillance system meets all criteria for recording and storage capabilities. After all of this is in place, you are then audited by an independent auditor. After your AAA certification is established, the auditor can show up any time he wants to – either at the plant or on a job site. We have to meet their criteria on any given day. That is why this binder stays in my office, and I have to do checks weekly and monthly, because not everyone can get this.”
Federal Records Management & Shredding go to this extent so their customers can feel safe and secure in allowing them to handle their confidential records. The AAA certification requires certain security measures and devices to be in place within the building and on the outside of the building. There are also security measures that must be in place where their containers and trucks are concerned. Their employees must meet certain criteria. Hanley said, “You can go to the website anytime you want, click on our organization and see who works here and see who is certified up to the day. It’s very accurate. That’s a security feature we put in because, for instance, when we go into a bank, they might have somebody working in the bank that is new. If at any time they wonder about the person picking up their documents, they can just check the website and if that person is not listed there, they know they don’t work for us. It’s all about security and making the customer feel secure enough that they picked the right company.”
Federal Records Management & Shredding has been a member of the New Haven Chamber of Commerce just since January of this year and hasn’t had the opportunity to use many of the benefits of membership yet. Hanley has been in our community his whole life and knows many of the New Haven business owners and Chamber members, so I am sure we will be seeing them at events.
