Today, two new facilities housing nearly 100,000 square feet of storage, office, and training space on 13 acres in Manassas, Virginia make up the company brothers Jim, left, and Joe Singleton founded in 1987.
Len Jones, left, operations and facility manager, and Foreman Frank Barretto learned to supervise large crews to maximize the labor efficiency on office moves.
 Brock Hedges, office moving salesman, brings a tremendous background in B2B selling from the telecom industry, where he learned to listen to customer needs.
Able’s 30 moving van fleet was found to be in new condition, well-equipped, and maintained when inspected by IOMI during the company's Certified Mover trainging.
Ed Katz presents Joe Singleton, owner and one of the founders of Able Moving and Storage, Inc. with the company's Certified Mover certificate from IOMI.
MARCH 4 - 6, 2007 - The Singleton brothers of Manassas, VA didn’t take the commitment to launch an office moving division lightly. They would need resources and people. And training.

They talked to Ed Katz of the International Office Moving Institute (IOMI) for two years.

“It wasn’t that we didn’t believe in your seminar or training.  It was, instead, that we didn’t want to go forward with the training until we were sure that we would commit all of the necessary capital and people resources to make the division a tremendous success.” 

In less than 20 years, the Singleton brothers built Able Moving & Storage into one of the most successful residential movers in their metro-Washington, DC market. Unlike most of their competition, Able neither picks people up off the street, throw a uniform on them, and send them out on a job, nor do they use subcontractors. All of their movers are Able employees and have been trained to provide the best-practice methods for doing residential moves.
 
“When their residential customers began asking Able to move their offices, too, Jim and Joe Singleton decided to develop and grow a commercial division,” said Katz, head of IOMI, which bills itself as the world's only university of office moving. Instead of learning the business at customer expense, they chose IOMI's professional Certified Mover training.

All key Able employees including sales, operations, customer service, project managers, supervisors and helpers, as well as the owners, attended the three-day training held at the company's Manassas, VA facility.

Training concentrated on best-practice methods for minimizing the risk of damage to customer furniture and computers and the buildings they move into and out of. Able learned the best practice methods for minimizing nonproductive downtime that customers spend packing and unpacking before and after a move, and learned a proprietary formula for estimating jobs accurately so that they finish on-time for the price quoted.

Industry veteran and Able Sales Manager Bob Mulligan found the experience an eye-opener.

“After being in the moving industry for 15 years, this is the first time that I met someone who makes sense and has a plan to do office moving the right way.  Thank you, Ed, for teaching us the tools and the best practice methods for doing office moves,”  said Mulligan.

The Singleton brothers agree.
“We are so thankful that we took your seminar.  With what we learned, we are convinced that we can now out perform and out-service our competition,” said Joe Singleton. Brother Jim sees the investment benefitting more than just their new office moving division.

“Ed, your training required a major investment on our part; but it was worth every penny that we spent. Every one of our employees learned a tremendous amount of knowledge on how to do office moves the best way possible. A lot of what you taught us, especially in the area of safety, will come in handy when we do residential moves, too. Thank you so much, Ed.”