When Family & Compassion Precede Business
Pioneers of the restoration industry, QwikResponse is a community-focused, third-generation family-owned restoration and construction company with deep ties to its beloved central coast community. Born and raised in Santa Barbara, Founder Steve Knight has built a company where their caring yet highly-skilled reputation precedes all else; the Knight family name is truly synonymous with restoration, skill, and compassion.
Family Matters
Family-owned businesses have run in the Knight family for generations; Steve’s great-grandfather Merrell owned a carpet cleaning company and Grandpa Arlen, Steve’s father, worked tirelessly to turn his natural talent into a fire & water damage business to serve the community he loved. Circa the 1980s, Arlen, Steve, and brother Mark, took their finely-honed insurance restoration skills and officially created QwikResponse - now one of the biggest restoration and construction companies in Santa Barbara today.
Showing Up When It Matters Most
With a deep focus on community and helping others in times of need, QwikResponse has always valued empathy, kindness, and understanding. Grandpa Arlen often preached that reputation is of utmost importance, so focus on the people who matter most - your customers. To this day, the Qwikresponse team’s success comes from valuing high standards, hard work, quality craftsmanship, ingenuity, and a passion for serving the community.
Steve and his son, current CEO Cheyne Knight, are well-known community members and often have local families reach out in times of need or natural disaster - they aren’t just a business, they’re like family. In the community’s biggest times of need, such as the Thomas Fire and the devastating mudslides in Montecito, the Knights and the QwikResponse team have always been present to assist others and navigate the challenges that arose from heavy soot, smoke damage, and the physical intrusion that the mudslides presented.
Success From Innovation
The Knight family’s goal was to make the process of restoration efficient and as easy on the client as possible - high levels of stress and emotion often accompany the scenarios that the QwikResponse team is called to work on. In the early days of the business, the team worked tirelessly on issues related to flooding. Insurance would typically pay for someone to tear out the carpet and replace it with something new. The QwikResponse team went another, more innovative route - drying carpets, changing out the padding, and deodorizing it- all onsite. Changing their services to work on scene saved the client money while eliminating unnecessary waste. To this day, the team prides itself on being innovative; by working smarter, they have saved money and avoided unnecessary stress for their clients.
What Makes Us Unique
With a wide scope of work, the QwikResponse team is quick on their feet and has assisted the community with a variety of unique situations. Thirty years ago, a flood devastated the Santa Barbara Bank & Trust and left the safe entirely flooded, leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars soaking wet and stuck together. Due to regulations from the FDCA, each bill had to be dried separately to pass through a bill counter. So, within 48 hours, the team separated thousands of bills and dried them on homemade racks in a room full of fans and dehumidifiers. While no other damage company was prepared or inclined to take on a project this extensive, QwikResponse stepped up to the plate and delivered a quick two-day turnaround.
QwikResponse stands out from other damage restoration companies, not just because of the level of empathy and care they hold for each project but also because of the importance they place on making close connections with every client. As a company that truly understands the toll that property damage and loss can take on families and businesses, they work with a deep sense of empathy. Through fires, floods, and unforeseen disasters, the QwikResponse team continues to be a beacon of hope throughout the communities of California’s central coast.