One longtime client, a school district two counties over, nearly canceled its contract during the scandal. Everett drove out personally to meet with the superintendent. He laid out everything, the fraud, the arrest, the fixes already underway. "I could have hidden this from you," he said. "I'm choosing not to." The district renewed the contract a week later, citing his honesty in the board minutes. It became the first domino in slowly rebuilding the firm's reputation.
A year later, Everett quietly retired the company's old logo. It had been designed the same year Paige joined, back when everything still looked fine on paper. The new one was simpler, plainer, nothing flashy about it at all. "Why change something that still works?" his new operations manager asked him. "Because I want a fresh start that actually looks like one," Everett said. No one at the company questioned it twice after that.
