About Awnguard
We’ve cleaned over 1,000,000 awnings!
AWNGUARD leading the urban oasis movement
"We're not just cleaning," says founder Dawn Wood. "We're stewards of shade and peace in a concrete world."
AwnGuard is a commercial exterior cleaning company founded in 2001 with the mission to create peaceful, beautiful public spaces that enhance quality of life in urban environments. The company was started by Dawn Wood, whose
personal journey – including childhood memories of watching her landscape architect father hand-draft park designs in Alaska – inspired a commitment to transforming overlooked commercial spaces into welcoming "Urban Oases."
Startup Story
The idea for AwnGuard was sparked when Dawn Wood and her then-husband Dan relocated from Alaska to Southern California in 2000. After visiting her aging grandmothers in the region, Dawn was struck by a revelation: "Everywhere we looked there were awnings, and everywhere we looked they were disgusting." This moment of clarity, combined with her father's legacy of designing thoughtful public spaces, inspired her to start a business that would go beyond simple cleaning to actively contribute to the beauty and dignity of commercial environments.
What began as a humble operation with a single truck and a $49 cleaning job at Paperback Exchange in Oceanside has grown into a mission-driven enterprise serving over 300 commercial properties across Southern California.
Services That Support the Mission
Today, AwnGuard offers comprehensive exterior cleaning services that help commercial property managers and business owners create inviting, well-maintained spaces. The company's core offerings include:
- Awning Cleaning & Maintenance - Gentle, specialized hand-cleaning of fabric and vinyl awnings that preserves materials while restoring vibrancy
- Solar Panel Cleaning - Professional cleaning using purified water and soft-brush techniques to maximize energy efficiency
- Pressure Washing - Complete exterior building cleaning for facades, walkways, and outdoor spaces
- Window Washing - Streak-free cleaning for buildings up to four stories
Each service is delivered with AwnGuard's signature promise: "Big Company Credibility with Small Company Service," ensuring professional results with personalized attention.
Measurable Impact
Since its founding, AwnGuard has cleaned over 1,000,000 awnings, helping commercial properties across San Diego, Orange, and Riverside counties maintain attractive, functional outdoor spaces. The company has built lasting relationships with clients who have stayed loyal for 10-20 years, with property managers consistently praising the team's reliability and attention to detail.
Beyond the numbers, AwnGuard's impact is measured in the transformation of public spaces – from shopping centers and medical plazas to schools and municipal buildings – into environments where people naturally want to linger, connect, and feel at ease.
The Urban Oasis Movement
What sets AwnGuard apart is founder Dawn Wood's vision of the "Urban Oasis Movement" – a philosophy that positions the company as more than a cleaning service. An Urban Oasis, in Wood's definition, is "a thoughtfully designed public space where people can pause, breathe, and reconnect with themselves and their surroundings."
This movement recognizes that clean, well-maintained shade structures, solar panels, and building exteriors contribute to the emotional well-being of communities. By keeping these elements pristine, AwnGuard helps create "safe havens in an otherwise concrete-dominated landscape."
Leadership
As a woman-owned business (WBENC certified) in a traditionally male-dominated industry, AwnGuard has earned recognition for both its business excellence and community impact. The company was featured in Vista Magazine as an exemplary local business, and founder Dawn Wood serves on advisory boards while actively mentoring other entrepreneurs through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program.
Core Values and Vision
Guided by values of Respect, Reliability, Impact, Community, Commitment, Teamwork, and Sustainability, AwnGuard envisions a world where urban environments offer pockets of calm and beauty – where clean, shaded spaces invite people to slow down and connect.
As the company continues to grow, it remains committed to elevating the dignity of often-overlooked maintenance work while building a network of "Urban Oasis Partners" who share the vision of creating more livable, peaceful communities throughout Southern California.
Dawn Wood | President
"I want to see a whole stadium of people who stand up and say, 'Yeah, I'm about building Urban Oases too. That's how movements start."
Creating Urban Oases One Space at a Time
Dawn Wood is the President and founder of AwnGuard, a purpose-driven company committed to transforming overlooked commercial spaces into peaceful "Urban Oases" where communities can gather, breathe, and reconnect. Inspired by childhood memories of watching her landscape architect father hand-draft park designs with meticulous care for the human experience, she turned a deeply personal understanding of thoughtful space creation into a lifelong mission to bring dignity and beauty to urban environments.
With a background in financial services and an entrepreneurial spirit inherited from her Alaska-raised family, Wood founded AwnGuard in 2001 to support commercial property managers and business owners in creating welcoming, well-maintained spaces that enhance quality of life. Under her leadership, the company has cleaned over 1,000,000 awnings across Southern California, always driven by the belief that even invisible maintenance work – done with grace and intention – can transform how people experience their communities.
Childhood Inspiration
Wood's calling to champion Urban Oases was seeded in the wilderness of Alaska, where she grew up surrounded by her father's vision of thoughtful space creation. Her father, a landscape architect, ran his own firm designing parks and public spaces across Alaska's vast terrain. Wood spent countless hours in his office, mesmerized by drafting tables covered with hand-drawn plans and hundreds of colored pens – each green representing a different shade of life he would bring to concrete spaces.
Her childhood was spent in true Alaskan style: weekends at the family's rustic one-room cabin 70 miles north of Anchorage, complete with propane lights, wood-burning stove, and an outhouse overlooking a pristine lake. Her parents, both adventurous spirits who had fled California's concrete sprawl for Alaska's open wilderness, raised her sailing on cold waters, cross-country skiing through untouched forests, and cycling on Anchorage's innovative network of separate bike paths – infrastructure her father helped champion as essential to livable cities.
What shaped Wood most profoundly was watching her father's meticulous care for human experience in his designs. She remembers him creating shadow studies for business parks, ensuring no building would cast others in perpetual darkness during Alaska's brief winter days. "He didn't want anything to look designed," she recalls. "He wanted spaces to feel naturally beautiful while serving people's needs." This philosophy – that thoughtful maintenance of our shared environments is both invisible and essential – became the foundation of everything Wood would later build.
Building a Movement
This calling led Wood to transform what could have been a simple cleaning business into the foundation of the "Urban Oasis Movement" – a philosophy that positions clean, shaded public spaces as essential to community well-being. She envisions Urban Oases as pockets of calm carved into city life, where weary travelers find clean awnings to shelter under, where lunchtime crowds pause in plazas that feel cared for, and where light reflects off spotless surfaces instead of grime.
As a certified woman-owned business leader in a traditionally male-dominated industry, Wood has earned recognition through features in local business publications and serves on advisory boards while mentoring other entrepreneurs through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. Her company's client relationships often span decades, with property managers consistently praising not just the quality of work, but the sense of partnership and shared purpose that AwnGuard brings to every project.
Vision and Values
Today, Wood continues to lead with what she calls "grace in motion" – a personal affirmation that guides her approach to business challenges and team leadership. She's building a movement, not just a business, working toward a future where commercial properties serve as welcoming community spaces and where the essential work of maintenance is recognized as dignified stewardship of shared environments.
Wood's ultimate vision is to rally a "stadium of people" who declare themselves Urban Oasis Partners – contractors, property managers, landscapers, and community leaders who share her commitment to creating spaces where people naturally want to linger, connect, and find peace in the midst of urban life.
