Michael Essrig

With more than 17 years of disaster preparedness experience, including seismic retrofitting, construction services and developing incident command systems, Michael Essrig presently serves as President and CEO of ETC.

A first generation Californian, Michael's professional highlights have found him serving Southern California since the inception of his disaster preparedness career when he was working out of his very own garage. Nearly two decades after the famous Sylmar earthquake where he found himself barely escaping falling furniture, Michael couldn't stand the thought of another quake occurring and not knowing if his own children would be safe. A self-starter with an entrepreneur spirit, Michael set out to "safe-t-proof" his own home. He had such peace of mind when he was finished that he launched a company, Safe-T-Proof, that now serves as the leader in hospital, commercial, institutional and governmental disaster preparedness services.

In 1994 Michael invented the "Quake Cottage," a mobile earthquake simulator that has become a popular educational tool for demonstrating the devastating effects of severe earthquakes and how the Safe-T-Proof fastening system securely locks down furniture and equipment to remain in place during the most violent tremblers (up to 8.0 on the Richter scale!). Michael Essrig and his Quake Cottage have been featured on numerous national and local news programs including NBC's Dateline and the Today Show, and several have been sold to government agencies and municipalities for the earthquake preparedness programs. (More about the Quake Cottage ››)

In 2001 Michael teamed up with his longtime business associate Chris Taylor, who owned a construction company, to work together on retrofitting a hospital. Realizing the synergies of working together on construction and seismic retrofit projects with their combined expertise in healthcare and life sciences, Michael and Chris formed ETC in 2002 and have together enjoyed steady business growth and an expanding base of satisfied customers since.

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