Member Q&A: Getting to Know Daniel G. Corcoran, CEAC, CAPs, RRC, Contractor Relations/ Design Specialist for Vets Access

Published in Home Modifications on March 19, 2020

Meet Daniel G. Corcoran, CEAC, CAPs, RRC, Contractor Relations/Design Specialist for Vets Access. Daniel and his brothers own and operate COR Freedom, but they also help their father run Vets Access, which specifically focuses on the VA market. Daniel answered our questions about how he got started in this industry and how their family-owned business went from starting in their parents’ home to expanding in nearly every state and serving veterans across the country.

Please describe your role and responsibilities with Vets Access.
At Vets Access, my role is to provide drawings and layouts for our subcontractors and the VA. My role also provides a layer of quality control for our projects, making sure we are consistent and up to our high standards. I am also one of our techs that do home mods and equipment installs, along with a few other hats.  

Can you tell us more about your background and how you originally got connected to the industry?
I have been in the construction industry for 30+ years, starting in high school and through today. When I went to college, I was trying to find a way to get out of the construction field, so I started and finished a four-year internship as a student athletic trainer. In the end, though, I came back to my roots as a draftsman and contractor. In 2008, as the market was collapsing and I was laid off, I asked my father if he needed any help with his small company. He did, so I started helping him install ramps. As that year went on, both of my brothers came on board. This caused us to need more work to sustain all of us, so we took on anything we could get our hands on. 

What sets Vets Access apart?  
We have always been the ones that would think outside the box to provide the best results for our clients. As we continued to grow Vets Access, we became a trusted company that the VA’s in our area relied on. As we all know, the market changes and opportunities can come in fast, and go away even faster, so we worked hard to stabilize ourselves with a diversified portfolio. One such attempt at diversification was to align ourselves with a few of the leading manufacturers in the industry, which caused new opportunities to emerge. Speeding forward a half dozen years, this growth continued and we started working on a large nationwide contract with EZ-Access that provided an opportunity for us to expand our business from Michigan to just about every state, including Puerto Rico and Guam. 

We are still a small family-owned business with growing pains, but our reach is much larger, and we can affect more of our nation’s veterans on a daily basis. 

How does Vets Access value their customers?  
We consider every veteran that we serve as an honor. A veteran himself, our dad just wanted to give back to those that gave so much for our freedoms. Dad instilled in us that we should always thank the veteran for their service and welcome them home. Sometimes we are actually helping them come home by just installing a ramp or a set of grab bars since they may need them to egress the entry of their home or even get out of the house. Some of the people that we serve become like family because we spend so much time in our clients’ homes.

One of the biggest things that sets both of our companies apart is that we have a proven business process that keeps us focused on our core values and mission of serving our clients’ needs with our strong Christian values. We strive to provide the best outcomes.

What is your “why” for working in this industry?
My purpose is to help others improve their lives through our services.