Richard Foley is a professional property damage field manager and founder of Texas drone startup Above and Beyond 806. Across severe weather investigations and commercial site surveys, his mission is to provide property owners, insurance adjusters, and project consultants with an undisputed visual record of structural reality. Having experienced how conflicting reports and unverified field dispatches stall claim resolutions, Richard built a remote site assessment workflow powered by Google Earth.
For contested property claims, Richard leverages historical satellite imagery and measuring tools to evaluate site histories and verify property damage directly from his desk. Recognizing the broader potential of site analysis, he expanded his operations to include commercial drone surveys. By planning and visualizing work on Google Earth's 3D canvas, he delivers ironclad deliverables for his clients and transforms how his field expertise is shared with stakeholders.
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Time saved |
Historical Context |
Faster alignment |
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Verifying structural measurements and histories remotely |
Looking back at historical imagery delivers verifiable ground-truth. |
A single-source of truth that tells a clear story |
The Challenge: Building trust with stakeholders
Investigating severe storm, hail, and wind impacts across sprawling Texas counties, Richard is familiar with the daily frictions of field work – traveling long distances to new places, meeting high standards, and communicating to important stakeholders. Separating fresh storm damage from pre-existing weathering requires undeniable visual proof and traditional investigation methods rarely provide the historical clarity needed to confirm whether a roof covering or commercial facade was intact prior to a specific weather event. Without verifiable visual records to ground their findings, property owners, insurance adjusters, and project consultants often face stalled negotiations and conflicting reports. Richard needed a trusted, precise spatial foundation that could establish objective historical proof before conducting physical onsite evaluations.
We needed a trusted source of truth to visually demonstrate building storm damages to get all of our different stakeholders aligned. Founder of Above and Beyond 806
The Solution: Verifiable ground truth
To overcome these evidence bottlenecks and operate efficiently, Richard analyzes sites remotely before his field work with the help of Google Earth. When a contested storm damage claim crosses his desk, he begins his assessment directly from his screen before investing time and money in an on-site visit. Google Earth’s historical imagery allows him to slide backward and forward through time, inspecting the target property across months and years prior to the reported weather date. This reveals roof conditions, prior repairs, and surrounding canopy changes before the storm hit. By comparing these baselines against recent imagery, utilizing built-in measurement tool, and drone imagery, Richard confirms structural timelines with high precision, establishing a reliable visual record for insurance adjusters and project stakeholders.
Mapping projects, using historical imagery, and adding photos from field work builds a complete picture of the site before and after incidents.
Building on his success with remote property damage evaluation, Richard recognized an immense opportunity to take site analysis to the next level: incorporating high-resolution drone imagery for his clients. That’s why he launched Above and Beyond 806. By combining local drone imagery with his work in Google Earth, Richard’s team is able to add specific and hyperfresh imagery for his clients.
Richard also uses Google Earth during pre-flight preparation – inspecting surrounding elevation, environmental hazards, property boundaries, and surrounding physical structures to map out flight paths. He’s then able to export his map projects as .kmz files directly to his Above and Beyond 806 application for flight mapping and execution. The final outputs are researched reports based on reliable geospatial data and imagery.
Beyond 806 plans flight routes in Google Earth and then imports the data to their custom drone flight software.
Google Earth is a win-win for my clients and me. Geospatial intelligence strengthens their claims and I save time to run a more efficient business.
The Impact: Time savings and better client outcomes
Anchoring remote site analysis and flight preparation on Google Earth has transformed how Richard translates field expertise into dependable client outcomes and helps him operate more efficiently. When stakeholders can visually review before-and-after satellite records, speculation is replaced with verified facts, claim disputes resolve significantly faster, and with greater trust among stakeholders.
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