About

We built the school we wished existed when we started

Masters Touch Academy came out of a restoration company, not a classroom. Master-level certification and committee work, turned into a curriculum.

Our story

We built the school we wished existed when we started

Masters Touch Academy came out of a restoration company, not a classroom. The training we could find taught the test and skipped the job: what to do when the moisture readings don’t move, when the adjuster pushes back, when the homeowner is standing in the doorway.

So we wrote the curriculum we needed: the mistakes that cost us money, the documentation habits that stopped them happening twice, and the standards work that shaped how the trade certifies people.

Thomas Cermak Thomas Cermak Founder
“A perfect dry-out you cannot prove is a loss. That one sentence is most of what I wish somebody had told me starting out.”
Credentials

What stands behind the curriculum

MSR

IICRC Master Fire & Smoke Restorer.

MWR

IICRC Master Water Restorer.

MTC

IICRC Master Textile Cleaner.

Chair

RRT technical advisory committee, plus vice-chair of CCT and subject matter expert on OCT and UFT.

CE

IICRC (Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification) approved continuing education provider.

FCITS

Certified Carpet Inspector (#1781) and Certified Concrete Moisture Tester.

How we teach

Four rules the curriculum is built on. They decide what goes in a course and what gets cut.

01

Teach the standard and the exception

When the written standard and the reality on a loss disagree, we teach both and tell you which one the adjuster will accept.

02

Documentation is part of the trade

A perfect dry-out you cannot prove is a loss. Documentation runs through every course rather than sitting in an appendix nobody reads.

03

Hands beat slides

Certification theory is online where you can rewatch it. Class time goes to equipment, chambers, and problems you cannot simulate on a screen.

04

Nobody learns this alone

The forum is not a marketing feature. Most of what a technician learns in year two comes from someone else who saw it in year five.

The training center

Cleveland, Ohio

A dedicated classroom and a lab with live drying and remediation equipment. Certification classes run monthly, and most have a hybrid seat if you cannot travel.

See the class schedule
3
IICRC Master certifications
5
Instructor categories taught
4
IICRC TAC committee roles
Cleveland
Home of the training center