Customer service is the name of the game.

HCDE’s Records Management division held a celebration decades in the making this week. On Wednesday, the team hosted an anniversary gathering to honor its 30 years of service to school districts and government agencies.

“To celebrate 30 years is amazing. It’s a blessing,” said Records Management Director Curtis Davis. “We’re in an organization that’s over 130 years old, and we’re celebrating something in our organization that’s been here for a long, long time. Not many people get to say that.”

Representatives from the 10 counties and 23 school district clients such as Fort Bend County, Alief, and Aldine ISDs attend the celebratory luncheon alongside Records Management staff and HCDE leadership.

The anniversary gathering was an opportunity for many in attendance to look back on longstanding business relationships.

“We had at least 14 school districts and government agencies that signed up with us as soon as we opened our doors in 1992,” said Davis. “I’ve been here for 20 years, and we’ve had the same customer base for as long as I’ve been here. We couldn’t be here without you.”

HCDE Superintendent James Colbert Jr. commended Davis and his team for the quality customer service they provide clients.

“We maximize the tax rate to provide a price that no one can compete with. We take pride in that,” said Colbert. “But the biggest reason customers continue to do service with us is because of our service. I’ve talked to 17 superintendents in the last three weeks. They will not hesitate to cancel a contract, so it’s a testament to you all.”

Revenue generated by Records Management, over $30 million since its inception, supports education programs at HCDE. 

“Curtis always outperforms what he is expected to do, which allows us to do things that no other place has ever done, like build Fortis Academy, Harris County’s first public recovery high school,” said Colbert. “That revenue comes into HCDE and allows us to address the blind spots of public education like no other entity does in our county, if not the country.”

Records Management stores over 525,000 physical records such as documents, films, tapes, microfilm, and hard drives in its vault and over 20 million digital records on PaperVision, its online records management portal. The division also offers document imaging, secure destruction, file retrieval and delivery, and identity theft protection.

“Everything Records Management offers, we use,” said Aldine ISD Director of Risk Management Patricia Guidry, whose district was recognized for having the largest amount of data in the PaperVision digital records system. “Aldine ISD has been a customer for so long because of the competitive price and the Records Management team. They’re so responsive. If a record is needed that’s stored at Harris County, we can virtually get that immediately.”

In line with its pledge to offer quality customer service, Guidry shed light on untraditional ways the division has supported her school district.

“There are times that records become a problem,” she said. “We had a hurricane, and we had a storage container at one of our locations that had records in it. The records became damaged and moldy. We didn’t know what to do with them. So, I contacted Mr. Davis and asked him if he was able to assist with their destruction, and the answer was ‘yes.’ So, we receive excellent customer service not only with ‘normal’ records management but also in peculiar situations.”

Goose Creek ISD’s Warehouse Supervisor Rafael Cantu echoes Guidry’s sentiment.

“If I ran into any issues with records, I would know who to call,” he said. “Goose Creek ISD has had a contract with Records Management for over 10 years because of the customer service. The service they say they provide, they provide. And everybody does it with a smile. They’re consistent in picking up records when they say they are going to. It makes it very, very easy to work with HCDE.”