About H2Bravo
H2Bravo, a woman-owned business led by seasoned program managers Kyndal Bruce, Heather Brothers, and Chad Herndon, specializes in delivering custom, collaboratively built solutions to meet our clients’ needs. We have successfully launched initiatives of all sizes using a variety of funding streams, including FEMA, CDBG-DR, and CDBG-MIT funds. Our core mission is to form strong, lasting partnerships with the communities and companies we serve, ensuring that each program achieves sustainable long-term recovery and resilience outcomes.
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Incorporated in 2011, H2Bravo operates as a limited liability company, headquartered in Louisiana. Today, we are a growing company with more than 40 employees, many of whom live in disaster-prone areas, giving us firsthand knowledge of the challenges communities face in recovery efforts. We also prioritize hiring from impacted communities, contributing to local economies while delivering high-quality services. Drawing on more than a decade of experience, we have helped states and municipalities navigate the complexities of government-funded disaster recovery.
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Every client brings a unique set of challenges, and we excel in developing tailored strategies that drive success in each scenario. This means listening to our clients, understanding their vision, and developing strategies that help make them successful. We recognize that every client is unique, and every solution should be, as well.
Certifications
H2Bravo is a Certified Women-Owned Business in New York City, and we are seeking our certifications in several other locations, including North Carolina and New York State.
Leadership
Our leadership team is distinguished by their expertise in problem-solving. From designing innovative recovery programs to coordinating the closeout of multi-billion-dollar housing initiatives, we actively lead the way in disaster response and recovery. H2Bravo’s commitment to client success is reflected in our ability to listen, adapt, and deliver innovative solutions that meet the specific needs and challenges of every community we serve.
Managing Partner
17 Years of Disaster Response and Recovery Experience
Kyndal Bruce
Kyndal is H2Bravo’s managing partner and she is committed to leading each of our projects to success. Her dedication to both our clients and to the quality of the work we deliver is unmatched. Kyndal has extensive recovery experience, most recently leading the City of New York’s efforts to close out $2.2B in Hurricane Sandy housing recovery projects. In this role, Kyndal worked closely with HUD and City agency stakeholders to develop a closeout data management system to capture all of the information and documentation that supported thousands of individual CDBG-DR funded single and multifamily housing projects. These projects spanned the full scope of recovery programs and funding sources, leveraging insurance funds, City-funds, and federal funds. Kyndal also worked as an embedded resource within New York City’s Housing Recovery Office where she was responsible for budgeting and financial management for the City’s Sandy recovery efforts.
Prior to this Kyndal spearheaded the review and submission of hundreds of millions of dollars in CDBG-DR applicant packages to the State of Texas after Hurricane Ike. In this role, she coordinated between multiple, simultaneous projects that were submitting documentation covering thousands of recovery projects. She was a critical team member supporting Mississippi’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina, where she developed financial tracking protocols for multiple rental recovery projects. Her commitment to the success of disaster recovery programs is why she is considered a leader in disaster financial management.
Principal / Chief Operating Officer
Heather Brothers
Heather is H2Bravo’s Operations Manager where she oversees the implementation of multiple projects by our project management team. Heather is also our most talented Production Manager, who is responsible for performing deep-dives into project data to ensure that projects are moving through production pipelines to completion. Heather has led production efforts for multiple projects, including the Texas General Land Office’s Hurricane Harvey housing recovery programs in Houston and Harris County, and the post-Harvey FEMA-funded PREPS program. In her role as production manager, Heather leads teams of inspectors, builders, and reviewers to coordinate their efforts and to address the large number of unique situations that often arise during large-scale residential recovery programs.
Heather has also worked on the government side as the Operations Manager for the Louisiana’s Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP), where she oversaw statewide recovery operations. Heather worked tirelessly to ensure that disaster recovery efforts met both timeline and budget expectations. Prior to her time at GOHSEP, she led production teams for multiple Hurricane Ike housing recovery programs for the State of Texas. This involved building and mobilizing teams that were deployed across the State to perform thousands of damage assessments and environmental reviews, and to manage hundreds of millions of dollars in construction projects. Following Hurricane Katrina, Heather was responsible for similar activities for Mississippi’s Small Rental and Neighborhood Home programs. Heather’s relationships with builders and service providers uniquely positions her to perform a critical role as the facilitator between different recovery stakeholders.
18 Years of Disaster Response and Recovery Experience
Construction Management Lead/ CTO
16 Years of Disaster Response and Recovery Experience
Chad Herndon
Chad is H2Bravo’s Construction Management practice lead, and he is H2Bravo’s Chief Technology Officer. Chad was the construction management lead for the Texas General Land Office’s state-run Hurricane Harvey housing recovery programs in Houston and Harris County. In this role, he led a team of damage assessors, construction estimators, construction inspections, construction invoice reviewers, quality control professionals, and contractors who performed over 4,500 damage assessments and repaired and reconstructed over 2,800 homes. Under Chad’s leadership, the program will ultimately repair and reconstruct more houses in the Houston metropolitan area than any other recovery program.
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Prior to this, Chad orchestrated H2Bravo’s implementation of Texas’ post-Hurricane Harvey PREPS program, which performed 18,500 damage assessments and repaired 16,000 houses within 8 months. Chad also led construction management teams in New York, New Jersey, and New York City after Hurricane Sandy, and he is responsible for adapting many of the lessons learned from hurricanes in the southeast to the northeast’s unique building types. Chad began his involvement with disaster recovery after Hurricanes Ike and Katrina, when he was responsible for developing many of the damage assessment, construction feasibility, construction pricing, and construction management protocols used in recovery programs throughout the United States. Chad’s ability to organize and manage complex recovery projects across multiple disasters has demonstrated his ability to ensure that projects are completed efficiently and to the highest standards.
Project Manager
Jen Smith
Jen is one of H2Bravo’s most experienced project managers, who was most recently responsible for managing Louisiana’s Hurricane Ida Disaster Case Management Program, which is now considered a best practice project by FEMA. Jen led a team of project managers, reporting staff, inspectors, quality control reviewers, resource coordinators, and software developers who implemented a turnkey case management solution for the state in a matter of weeks. Because of Hurricane Ida’s record number of FEMA IA applications and the huge geography that was impacted, the State tasked Jen and her team with managing four case management providers that were working with hundreds of resources who were providing assistance to disaster survivors. Jen’s leadership ensured that the program worked smoothly, and that the state had constant visibility on hundreds of case managers who were working on the project in multiple locations.
Jen also has extensive experience with other FEMA and HUD programs. She has managed large teams of call center personnel to support efforts to perform substantial damage inspections. She has also led teams that implemented key aspects of both Texas’s Harvey PREPS program and Louisiana’s Shelter at Home Program. For these programs, Jen led IT development efforts, mobilized teams of contractors, deployed inspectors to quickly assess damages, and oversaw customer service teams. Jen also worked extensively on CDBG-DR programs in both New York after Hurricane Sandy and Texas after Hurricanes Ike and Dolly, where she led teams that supported environmental reviews and program implementation. Throughout her career, Jen has organized and led complex operations that require close collaboration with public agencies and private contractors.
11 Years of Disaster Response and Recovery Experience
Program Manager
15 Years of Disaster Response and Recovery Experience
Reid Bruce
Reid is H2Bravo’s regulatory subject matter expert, who has led the development and start-up of multiple large-scale recovery efforts. Reid has worked extensively in both FEMA and HUD-funded recovery programs where he directly engages with clients to collaboratively create programs that meet their respective needs. Most recently, Reid worked with the State of Louisiana to pioneer a new approach to disaster case management. This initiative, which included designing a first of its kind system that combined all aspects of case management programs into a single platform, enhanced the ability of case managers to assist survivors while giving the State real-time insight into survivor needs and the performance of case management providers.
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Following Hurricane Sandy, Reid worked with both New York City and New York state to develop their unique approaches to recovery, including the development of the first CDBG-DR reimbursement programs and tailored approaches to acquisition, buyout, and resettlement programs. Over the following decade, Reid designed multiple unique recovery and mitigation sub-programs that were customized to meet New York City and New York State’s requirements for addressing complex regulations and varied neighborhood types.
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Reid also reformed the procurement landscape for CDBG-DR housing programs by developing construction contractor assignment methodologies, standardized pricing methodologies, and objective methods to measure contractor performance. This strategy allowed grantees to create recovery programs that rewarded performing contractors for meeting expectations, while limiting the grantee’s exposure to potential contractor nonperformance. Reid’s outside-the-box thinking and ability to mobilize teams has been central to his role in developing novel strategies for multiple large-scale recovery programs.