Tessi Announces Founding Advisory Board with Leaders from FEMA, Insurance and the Disaster Restoration Industry

Tessi, an AI platform for disaster housing repair, names advisors Brock Long, Todd Benson & Jeffery Magoon to strengthen funding, assessment, labor coordination

BOSTON, MA, UNITED STATES, April 28, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Tessi, a AI-native coordination platform that connects damage assessment, funding, and labor dispatch for post-disaster housing repair, today announced the appointment of three founding Advisory Board members: Brock Long, former Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; Todd Benson, a former senior leader at BELFOR Property Restoration now serving as a neutral umpire and appraisal expert; and Jeffery Magoon, an insurance agency owner with prior executive roles at ATI Restoration, BELFOR, and First Onsite Property Restoration.

Tessi is building critical infrastructure to automate and coordinate the three elements that determine how quickly homes are repaired: damage assessments, funding, and labor. Today, these systems operate in silos—creating delays, duplicated effort, and uncertainty across stakeholders. Tessi delivers rapid, defensible damage assessments and cost estimates that unlock funding and enable immediate dispatch of qualified, vetted labor, serving as a neutral, trusted orchestration engine across insurers, contractors, homeowners, nonprofits and public agencies.

“We need to break down silos and embrace innovation that drives more efficient coordination of home-repair resources across the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Tessi has an exciting vision for how to automate and connect disjointed, cumbersome processes so people can get home more quickly and cost effectively,” said Brock Long, who in addition to leading FEMA, has led a nationally recognized emergency management consulting firm, led Alabama state emergency management, and served as the private sector chair for the National Emergency Management Association.

Benson brings decades of experience in large-loss restoration and now serves as an independent umpire in complex insurance disputes. For 37 years, he served as president of one of the largest restoration companies in California, Oakwood Construction and Restoration Services. He sees huge potential for rapid access to a neutral, third party estimate of work to be done. “A lot of friction and cost comes from time delays and misalignment on scope and pricing. If you can establish a credible, data-driven starting point that all sides can work from, you reduce disputes and move projects forward more rapidly and cost-effectively.”

Magoon has a unique perspective as an insurance agency owner and years serving as an innovation, technology and commercial executive at restoration companies. He highlighted the importance of aligning insurance decision-making with field execution. “In this industry, the lack of transparent data between claims, funds and restoration is where things often slow down. Tessi bridges that gap – linking a verified scope of losses across an entire landscape directly to a funded job and a ready crew. That’s how you get from first notice of loss to the first nail in the wall much faster.”

Tessi is founded by veteran tech entrepreneurs from Boston, Susan Hunt Stevens and Ben Greene, who saw the opportunity for Tessi while helping people navigate various disasters at prior companies. “We’re building Tessi to address the painful gaps in the post-disaster home repair system, which was just not designed for this frequency and severity of disasters,” said Susan Hunt Stevens, Co-Founder and CEO of Tessi. “Brock, Todd, and Jeff each bring a critical perspective from federal response to claims to field operations. Most importantly, they all have a shared commitment to helping people on one of the worst days of their lives. We are thrilled to have them as part of our extended team.”

About Tessi
Tessi is an AI-native orchestration platform for post-disaster housing repair. By generating rapid damage assessments, transparent cost estimates, and coordinated access to funding and labor, Tessi helps homeowners, insurers, contractors, governments, and nonprofits repair homes more quickly, efficiently, and safely. Learn more at tessi.ai

Brian Lowe
Elevate Communications
+1 508-523-4901
blowe@elevatecom.com
Visit us on social media:
LinkedIn

Legal Disclaimer:

EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the author above.