Shared Ground

Episode 15: Quick Hits - 21 years working on disasters with Justin Hoellerich

• Sean Knierim & Allan Marks

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How Do You Rebuild After Losing Everything? 

In this episode, we sit down with disaster recovery expert Justin Hollerich from Bright Harbor to talk about what really helps after catastrophic loss—what works, what doesn’t, and what most people overlook. With over two decades navigating recovery from wildfires, floods, and hurricanes, Justin shares practical lessons on managing the mental toll of starting over, building back stronger, and staying grounded when life is in chaos.

We cover:

  • Why most people underestimate the mental strain of recovery
  • Simple strategies to protect your health and mindset during tough times
  • How community can make or break the path to rebuilding
  • Why facts—not fear—are essential to recovery
  • The unique resilience Justin has witnessed in Los Angeles after the fires

Whether you’re navigating personal loss, supporting someone who is, or just interested in how people rise after devastation, this conversation offers grounded insights and actionable takeaways.

🎧 Listen now to understand why community matters more than ever.

If you find this useful, share it with someone rebuilding or working through hard things.

Shared Ground is produced by Sean Knierim and Allan Marks. Thanks to Cory Grabow, Kara Poltor, Corey Walles (from The Recording Studio) for your support in launching this effort.

For more stories of resilience & rebuilding, kindness & generosity: visit shared-ground.com and subscribe to Sean's substack. We invite you to share your own stories of resilience at the Shared Ground website - whether in response to the January fires in LA or other situations.

Follow us at seanknierim.substack.com, Instagram, or wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc).

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining today. As we've been talking about resilient rebuilding here in Los Angeles and beyond for the last two days, could you introduce yourself and share what you're up to these days?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sean, thanks. My name is Justin Hollerich. I work with a company called Bright Harbor. We are a entire recovery process. The company was founded based on the concept of the founder, joel Wish had a friend in Colorado that lost his home his home. This individual tried to navigate the recovery process on his own, found the process to be extremely aggravating and very undefined in terms of how to even navigate a total loss rebuild, and Joel found that this was an area that really has not been addressed just in terms of support in general for people to actually recover from these type of events. Our company is currently in LA right now helping navigate the complexity of rebuilding, also supporting renters in their issues with potentially recovering their assets that they may have lost. If they're underinsured, if they're uninsured, we really try to help get them in a position to financially try to rebound in any way that they can.

Speaker 1:

And right now I don't know if people are going to be able to hear. In the background we have about 50 people working in a design session to support and many of these folks have worked over a long time in disaster and service to communities. You yourself, you said 21 years. What were you doing before you came to Bright Harbor?

Speaker 2:

Correct. Yeah, I've been in the recovery industry for a little over 21 years, mostly as a public adjuster.

Speaker 1:

I was also a carrier adjuster for a period of time, as well as an independent adjuster and expert witness in legal actions relating to insurance recovery. Justin, we've talked to people throughout this, the last six months and, in fact, the last 10 years. That Side Porch has been around about working on hard things, especially when you're in situations where you yourself are being affected in tough ways, when others might be coming through pretty traumatic experiences. What have you seen in terms of taking care of yourself, from you and from others? You've been around, like any insights you've seen on how to take care of yourself so that you can even manage in these situations?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I think this is one of the most overlooked components of people trying to recover in terms of these aspects. The mental aspect, the mental health of you when you're trying to go through this recovery process, is critical. If you're not sleeping well, if you don't eat well, if you're waking up at 2 am with thoughts about what you're missing on your personal property list, things of that nature, it adds up and what it adds up to is kind of a fogginess, a brain fogginess that also includes trauma, things that people are trying to work through in terms of really trying to process what the event was, in terms of how that affected their lives.

Speaker 2:

What I have noticed in this community, especially in the LA community, is a tremendous amount of resilience in terms of not only addressing the immediate trauma of losing their home and losing their community and things of that nature, but also not giving up and truthfully really putting full effort into trying to make this work in terms of rebuilding and or moving back if they have a renter or if they're in a rental situation, having their landlord involved as well and trying to get back as soon as possible. So the community, in my opinion, has been extremely effective in supporting each other through this process, in terms of guiding people in a very complex situation to just reassure that this isn't the end of the world, that there are things that you can do, that this is manageable and that this is potentially doable with the support and the guidance that typically is needed in this situation.

Speaker 1:

So if I pull out a few things I heard from you and I've heard from others over the years eating a little bit better, sleeping a little bit more, if you can, a little more hydration, physical activity, a little more hydration, physical activity and, importantly, really try and prioritize the community. Many in times of trauma or in times of struggle will isolate, will try and take on things themselves, and I think what I heard from you really clearly is opening up to community and being vulnerable, which is something we heard a lot about over the last weeks, can really help one work through this. So how about you for yourself? Like you're really good about talking about others, sure, you yourself, what do you find really helps you when you're working on these hard things?

Speaker 2:

So, at the end of the day, in my opinion, what helps calm me down in these types of situations is relying on facts. There's just a lot of misinformation out there or not understanding basically what is real, and in order to really make good decisions moving forward, you have to understand what the facts are and what's real. And I feel like at the end of the day, especially with insurance and the anxiety of recovering and insurance and a few of the things that I actually focus on when I'm thinking about trying to maintain a healthy level mental health level is exercising, eating well, taking walks, leaving a notepad and a pen by your bed in case you wake up at 2 am and have thoughts about what you need to talk about.

Speaker 1:

I find a lot of times, if I wake up or even during the day, if I have those thoughts and I don't put them on a piece of paper, they'll keep banging around in my brain. But by putting them physically this doesn't work. If I type it, it works. If I write it, it helps me then relinquish those to another time.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. You want to get your thoughts down so that you don't have this dynamic cycle that keeps going on about trying to cover a thousand different things at the same time. Focus on things that you can attack now and then plan on short-term and long-term goals in terms of what really is necessary for you to move from A to Z in terms of the recovery process.

Speaker 1:

And focusing on what you can control versus what you can't, and I find a lot of times, especially in moments of struggle, many of the things I try to work on are things I actually can't do, which leads to continued frustrations.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, especially in the grant world where things change daily. The FEMA world insurance in general is kind of a product that is subjective and very hard to project in terms of the output. Yeah, we look at, you know these are all things that create really a sleep issue and or anxiety, and we highly recommend that people do seek, you know, mental health advocacy out there in terms of being able to open up and share the trauma that typically people go through with somebody that's other than their family. And I feel like that's also a very important concept is you know you have your family, you have your support system, but you know you need to have somebody kind of outside your circle, in my opinion, to really kind of really explain and or show somebody how you feel about what you're feeling inside in terms of your recovery process and I find that, as someone who came through losing my house and my family's house earlier this year, seeing others be vulnerable helps me understand it's okay to feel the way I am.

Speaker 1:

So as we move forward so we've talked about a lot of these hard things what's bringing you hope, Justin?

Speaker 2:

First and foremost, I would say the community aspect, in terms of the effort being put forward to rebuild in LA, is something that I have not witnessed in 21 years of disaster recovery. People want to rebuild here and they are very adamant at trying to recover their community, and that is something that will completely resonate through the entire rebuild process, from the government level to the local level, to the individual businesses and the actual people that live there. They all need to work together and they have in terms of trying to recreate something that is completely lost.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful. Thank you so much for finding time and pulling away from what I'm sure the audio will pull through that there's a whole crowd behind us designing a fund to try and support communities around here. Thanks for what you and Bright Harbor are doing, Justin, and I hope some folks can look to y'all and find some support from you. Thank you, Sean, I really appreciate it.