Randal “Randy” Perkins, the founder of a nationally recognized South Florida disaster relief company that cleaned up New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy and Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina, among other high-profile disasters, died Saturday.
The cause was an apparent heart attack while he was on his daily evening run, according to his family. Although he was most recently living at a North Carolina hotel at a job site, he had come home to Delray Beach for a week for the holidays. He was 60.
Perkins was the founder and chairman of AshBritt Inc. since 1992, which he named after his two oldest daughters, Ashley and Brittany.
AshBritt is currently the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contractor for 25 states covering all hurricane states: every Gulf state from Texas to Florida, and up the east coast to North Carolina. Their territory covers half the population of the United States, said his daughter, Brittany Perkins Castillo.
Today, for example, among the the company’s jobs sites are the cleanup in New Mexico from floods, and Florida, which is still cleaning from hurricanes Helene and Milton last year.
The work “speaks to the testament and strength of our company, what he built, his legacy,” Perkins Castillo said. “He shaped the industry, worked harder than anyone, and he was a force, a relentless person in business.”
In South Florida, AshBritt helped with the cleanup after Hurricane Irma in 2017.
Born on Oct. 6, 1964 in Miami, Perkins graduated from Miami Coral Park High School and briefly attended the University of Miami before transferring to the University of Central Florida. He left college early to support his young family, taking jobs with Yellow Freight and Ryder and working in landscaping, according to his family.
He married his high school sweetheart, and created Grasshopper Landscaping, which later evolved into Sunbelt and, finally, AshBritt. But after Hurricane Andrew walloped Miami-Dade in 1992, AshBritt the landscaping company became involved as a subcontractor, introducing Perkins to the disaster response field.
AshBritt was born into disaster response with just “a couple bucket trucks,” Perkins Castillo said. Perkins made it work because “he found other small businesses in the area and got everyone together. He leveraged as much resources as he could. Then started chasing storms around the United States.”
His success made him wealthy, and he briefly considered politics. In 2016, after U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy chose not to seek re-election in order to pursue a U.S. Senate bid, Perkins defeated two other candidates in the Democratic primary, but lost his bid to Republican Brian Mast.
“He wanted to run to support policies he believed in,” Perkins Castillo said. “He loved politics, he loved engaging in politics, but I’m not sure he was interested in running again after that.”
Perkins was a hands-on presence in the field, according to his family. He often lived in impacted communities for months to oversee recovery and managed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers missions after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and Georgia, Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey, and the Kentucky flood cleanup.
Although he was semi-retired, he was most recently living at a hotel with the team in Asheville, in the ongoing cleanup from Hurricane Helene, because on site, “that’s where he found great joy,” his daughter said.
U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz served as AshBritt for 10 years as general counsel.
He said Perkins was good at what he did because “he was excellent at organizing chaos. He would look at a problem and the wheels would never stop turning.”
“Randy was a force of nature, really one of a kind. He had an unbelievable work ethic, even after his success. The best way to describe Randy, quite frankly, is Randy was the flame and everybody else was the moth. Randy could go into any room and just take over. Even when we were meeting with governors and they were at the table, Randy would still be the center of attention,” he said.
Perkins’ career wasn’t without controversy.
In October 2005, when Hurricane Wilma hit Broward County, portable classrooms were damaged at public schools. District auditors issued a report in June 2009 claiming that AshBritt “grossly overcharged” the school system. The review found “clear signs of coercion and falsified documents” by district administrators and staff, as well as “overbilling and double billing” by the company.
Auditors wrote that AshBritt overbilled the school district $237,580 in increased overhead, profit, mark-up and per-diem labor rates for portable roof repairs, as well as another $528,028 for interior work “which was either not performed at all or was double-billed.”
Perkins told the South Florida Sun Sentinel at the time that the company did nothing wrong, and had not overbilled or overcharged.
And in 2021, Perkins paid the FEC a $125,000 settlement after his company contributed to a pro-Trump super PAC, violating a law that bars government contractors from donating to political committees, according to Forbes. AshBritt, Inc. had contributed $500,000 to America First Action in April 2018, but at the time, AshBritt had a $40 million contract with the Defense Department. The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 prohibits federal contractors from donating to political committees.
His daughter said Perkins considered his life an “American dream” story, since he started with “humble beginnings.” He and his wife were even WIC recipients as young parents, qualifying as low-income for the Woman, Infants, Children assistance program.
He turned his gratitude for his financial success into becoming a philanthropist for causes he believed in.
His contributions included launching the Perkins Initiative for Disaster Response and Global Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and supporting organizations including Best Buddies, The Brett Boyer Foundation, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the Mourning Family Foundation, the Overtown Youth Center, of which he was a legacy supporter and past board member, and the Lauren’s Kids Foundation, where he served as a board member for more than 15 years.
He also made a nearly $1 million contribution to rebuild the Gulf Coast Children’s Advocacy Center in Panama City after it was devastated by Category 5 storm Hurricane Michael in 2018. It now has the name “The AshBritt Environmental & Lauren’s Kids Trauma Therapy House.”
He also supported Broken Shackle Ranch, a nonprofit youth home for boys ages 16-21 serving Georgia’s at-risk youth, according to his family.
He is survived by his wife Saily, of Delray Beach, and their four daughters, Ashley Santiago, of Naples; Brittany Perkins Castillo, of Delray Beach; Sara Perkins, of Delray Beach; and Sam Perkins, of Delray Beach; and four grandchildren.
The viewing will be 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday at the Glick Family Funeral Home, 3600 N. Federal Highway in Boca Raton. The service will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at Calvary Chapel Boca, 1551 W. Camino Real in Boca Raton, and the viewing will be at 12:15 p.m.
Lisa J. Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com. Follow on X, formerly Twitter, @LisaHuriash
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