DBi Services’ abrupt closure leaves locals unemployed

Thousands of DBi Services employees — including all who worked in the company’s Winter Garden office — are unemployed, uninsured and confused after the company closed its doors abruptly at the end of October.

DBi Services was a nationwide asset management and infrastructure services company. It was responsible for repairing potholes, damaged signs and guard rails, closing lanes during accidents, and taking care of drainage ditches and trees. The company also managed care of rest areas along interstates.

In Central Florida, DBi was providing services for the massive I-4 Ultimate project.

Guy Huffer started working at DBi’s Winter Garden office at 100 Second St. about two-and-one-half years ago as a lead technician who specialized in operating heavy equipment. 

Huffer said he loved his job and enjoyed the people with whom he worked. He considered them to be like brothers and sisters. 

“They are wonderful guys — they’re like family,” Huffer said. “They are just beautiful people.”

Huffer said at about noon Friday, Oct. 22, all employees received an email saying there was a web meeting giving an important company update scheduled for 4:30 p.m. 

In a three-minute web meeting, thousands of employees across the United States were laid off when the company unexpectedly closed its doors with no prior announcement or information. 

The company also sent a follow-up email for those who were unable to attend the scheduled web meeting. 

“As you are aware, DBi Services LLC has been facing a number of challenges as a business,” the email read. “As a result, the company’s Board of Directors has determined that it is necessary to permanently close the company’s operations, at your employment site and virtually all sites throughout the country. This means that your employment with the company will terminate, effective today, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021.”

By midnight the same day, the company had locked the employees out of their work website and email log-ins. That meant those who didn’t attend the meeting or check their email that day were not notified of their job loss or the company’s closure. 

Employees were left with no job, no severance packages and no health insurance and were left stranded with uninsured company trucks and equipment. 

Huffer said many of his crew members had no idea, and he had to call them to tell them the news. 

“I was more worried about my crew guys than anything else,” Huffer said. “I have a Class A License. I can bounce back with anything. But I was so worried about all my crew guys, because a lot of them can’t find jobs like that.”

Huffer said there were about 15 guys on his crew who worked at the Winter Garden location. 

Since the company’s closure, Huffer has been keeping in touch with his former crew members.

“I don’t know what most of those guys are going to do,” Huffer said. “A lot of them are filing for unemployment, but with how the system is right now, it’s a hard, long and slow process.”

Winter Garden resident Henry Wiggins and his wife, Evie, also are feeling the impact of the company’s decision. 

Henry Wiggins started working for DBi in 2018 as a highway technician and picked up litter along the highways. 

He said one of his friends and employees was the one to notify him about the job loss. He was completely locked out of his email before he was notified. 

“I was shocked and angry,” Henry Wiggins said. “They didn’t even have the guts to tell us to our face. I don’t even know what we are going to do.”

He said he and the other employees with whom he worked dedicated years of hard work and time. 

“This company was bad news and not good to its employees,” Evie Wiggins said. “They mistreated their workers and had them work in unsafe working conditions with lack of safety equipment. I don’t know what we are going to do now. We need help.” 

Evie Wiggins said she worries the unexpected job loss will leave their family homeless. 

“We are so heartbroken,” she said. “We worked our butts off to lose everything we had. We need a miracle.”

Since DBi announced its closure, the company has gone silent on social media. The company also is deleting comments and posts within 24 hours, especially on LinkedIn, where its employees are speaking out regarding the closure. 

DBi released the following statement on Monday, Oct. 25: “DBi Services today confirmed that due to continued operating and financial challenges, and sudden and unexpected setbacks, particularly the decision of its primary lender to discontinue all funding, the company determined that a wind down of substantially all of its business is necessary at this time.”

However, the employees are not giving up. Kayla Tucker, whose husband worked at DBi, started a Facebook group, which now has more than 1,000 members. 

A class action lawsuit was filed Tuesday, Oct. 26, by Leonard Jankowski, who worked for DBi for more than 18 years at the company’s corporate headquarters in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. The lawsuit states the company violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988, which requires a company to provide a 60-day advance written notice of termination.

The suit seeks unpaid wages; paid time off; accrued holiday, vacation and sick leave pay; and benefits, including pension and 401K contributions, for a period of 60 days following the employees’ termination, in addition to interest, and legal fees and costs.

“I hope that all my guys from Winter Garden and throughout the United States bounce back from this,” Huffer said. “I have met so many people and made so many connections in this Facebook group already, and they truly are wonderful people and they deserve to stand up and speak their minds for what’s right. God bless them.”