A Little History

In the late 70's, while practicing architecture and designing large garden apartment complexes, Rod Johnson decided there had to be a better way to move in and out of apartments, since most major metropolitan areas were composed of large percentages of rental housing. This seed thought, combined with the horrid reputation of the moving industry at the time, gave Johnson the idea of developing a system that could be done quickly and in a manner that allowed the customer to know exactly how much their move would cost. In advance.

So began the challenge. The market research showed that most customers will pay a premium of quality service but not an open-ended "carte blanche" arrangement as had been the case with many movers. Typically, movers' rates were quoted at $20 per hour per man. Then, on the day of the move five men showed up, costing the customer $100 per hour versus the $40 (for two men) they were counting on. Additionally, the longer the move took the more money the movers made. There was no incentive system to benefit the contractors bid for and receive a portion of the total move cost. The faster (and safer) they work, the more money they make. The customer gets moved quickly and efficiently and they in turn reward us with their greates gift ... referrals. That's right, our customers tell their friends who tell their friends and so on.

Many changes have been made since the original invention of the MoveCalc system. Initially, when Rod Johnson first opened, the office was a 200 square foot building in Tarrant COunty and all move prices were calculated on one of the first personal computers called the Radio Shack Model III considered "state of the art" at that time and so new it only had three digits in the serial number. Today, our Irving, Texas sales center uses a highly sophisticated Nortel Option 11C phone system that is integrated with a file server "farm" networked intra city and backed up by multiple servers and tapes. All of this enables us to grow quickly, audit efficiently and activate new business swiftly.

The Apartment Movers take pride in our approach of always trying to improve on our service and our productivity. We hav emoved hundreds of thousands of people since our very first day of operations in 1978. We're proud to know that we've changed an industry, we've made customers lives easier and we are the standard by which this sectore of the industry measures itself.