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September 26, 2016 Faces of Business

Valente is Hartford’s paper records archivist

PHOTO | Steve Laschever Frank Valente Jr. said the digital revolution will reduce but not eliminate the need for paper document storage, meaning his Hartford company — Capitol Archives and Record Storage — still has a future.
Stan Simpson
PHOTO | Steve Laschever Frank Valente Jr.’s Laurel Street storage center could be seized by eminent domain as part of plans to rebuild I-84.
By Stan Simpson

On the office wall of Frank Valente Jr.'s Laurel Street office is a framed original blueprint, circa 1860, of an insurance company's fire sprinkler system. Near that artifact is a framed original front page of The Connecticut Courant (later to be known as The Hartford Courant) from Sept. 24, 1798.

For 35 years, Valente's business — Capitol Archives and Record Storage — has carved a niche as a Hartford-based records storage and management company, cataloging such things as medical records, wills, original documents, accounting files and computer tapes.

As the company evolved, it included paper-shredding services, document restoration and a full-service copy center to its portfolio. Its clients include lawyers, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, banks and architectural firms — entities that need a place to store important paper work.

“I love pediatricians,'' boomed Valente, a burly man with close-cropped gray hair and a goatee. “Because they have to keep their charts for 28 years — 18 years and 10 more after they leave. Give me all the pediatricians in the world.”

Pediatrics wasn't exactly the sector Valente's father, Frank Valente Sr., was looking for in the 1970s.

In 1977, the father, who worked in construction and was a cabinet maker, purchased the bank-owned building on Laurel Street with the intention of setting up a wood-working company.

The following year, Valente Sr. decided to turn the 100,000-square-foot building into a “You Store It” warehouse operation, renting out space to individuals who needed storage. Capitol Archives and Record Storage was officially launched in 1981.

Later, another 100,000-square-foot storage facility was purchased on Windsor Street a few miles away. Today, the company has about 500,000 boxes stored in 2 million cubic feet of storage space.

“When I started, you could give me a customer's name and a box number and I could tell you where it was in the building,” Valente, 57, said.

An automated-computer system, with bar codes and digital mapping, handles those duties now. “My motto is I want to make it feel like your file never left your office,” Valente said. “That's how we service our customers. I'm saving customers a lot of money by keeping the records here.''

The business generates about $1 million in revenue; with storage costs ranging from $20 to $3,000 a month, depending on the number of boxes needed. Boxes can range in size from 1.2 cubic feet and up.

Valente estimates he has about 300 customers. There are 10 employees, including 6 full-timers.

In this age of high technology, in which documents can be stored digitally via the “cloud,” Valente is not worried about his business becoming obsolete.

“If you're going to scan everything, I'd (still) keep my records for at least two to three more years before I destroyed them; just to have them,'' he said. “There is no backup on the cloud, as far as I can see. You don't know where it is. And how HIPPA-compliant is it?” (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability law — known as HIPPA — establishes privacy guidelines to protect patient records.)

As an example of how technology has its faults, Valente notes that in the early 1990s, one of his clients invested heavily in scanning employee health-benefit documents. As a backup to the scans, Capitol stored the papers in about 2,000 boxes.

“Then one day I get a call and someone says 'do not destroy those boxes ever because we can only account for 25 percent of what was scanned,' '' Valente said. “I don't think we'll ever be without paper. I mean, we'll have less, but I don't think we'll ever be without paper.”

Over the years, Capitol's document-restoration services have also come in handy. There was the time 10 years ago when a law firm's basement flooded, damaging many documents. The installation of a dehumidifier by the firm made it worse. But over the next 18 months, Valente said his company was able to re-wet the docs, remove the mold and restore the paperwork.

Frank Valente Sr. died in 2006.

Valente Jr. fondly recalls his at times contentious interactions with his father, who he describes as business savvy, but more frugal than him. The two would often travel to auctions to buy metal storage racks at bargain prices. As Frank Jr. began to control more of the business, he still found himself bickering with dad about expenses.

“I say this as a joke,” Valente Jr. said. “If I needed to buy a pencil I had to give my father a spreadsheet to see if the cash flow was there to handle it. He taught me to work within the cash flow.”

In the next few years, Capitol may be facing a new challenge. The state plans to rebuild and replace the I-84 section that runs through Hartford.

That would mean the likely purchase of Valente's four-story Laurel Street building through imminent domain.

The proceeds from the Laurel Street building would likely help Valente finance a new building.

Until the state's plans are approved, it's an option this archivist will have to keep filed away.

Stan Simpson is the principal of Stan Simpson Enterprises LLC, a strategic communications consulting firm. He is also host of “The Stan Simpson Show,” which airs Saturday, 5:30 a.m., on Fox CT or www.fox61.com/stan.

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