My Biz: Moving business grows up

IOWA CITY — Eric Jones didn’t set out to own a moving company. The opportunity kind of fell into his lap.

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Jones, 52, originally moved to Iowa City for the non-fiction writing program after working as a high school English teacher and coach. When he finished that program, he found himself wondering what to do next because he knew he didn’t want to go back to teaching.

“A guy I was living with had started a moving company that was just a rental truck loading and unloading service,” Jones said. “He hadn’t done anything with the business in two years. … He said I could take out an ad, get a cellphone and start moving furniture. I had never done a move and didn’t have any experience in the industry. But that’s what I did.”

That was more than 20 years ago and so it seems the decision was the right move, literally.

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Today, Jones co-owns Adamantine Spine Moving with his business partner, Bill Hoke of Mount Vernon, a history major. (“Adamantine” means resembling a diamond in hardness or luster.)

They work with customers in the Iowa City and Cedar Rapids area, and they also have a location in Des Moines with two additional co-owners.

Nursing and moving

At the time he entered the moving business, Jones was working as a nursing assistant on the burn unit at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.

“There's actually a lot of similarities between nursing and moving,” he said. “Both are really intimate professions. You're meeting people at a point of change or transformation … and you need to meet that vulnerability with respect and kindness and care.

“People are incredibly grateful in both jobs. You get hugs in the hospital sometimes, and you get hugs as a mover.”

As the moving business grew, Jones transitioned to working on that full time and brought on his partner Hoke in about 2005. “He was a farm kid and just brilliant and could do lots of things and so we became partners and grew the business.”

In those early days, he and Hoke were filling the role of workers moreso than owners.

“We were on the trucks and doing sales and doing everything. It has only been in the last four or five years that we’re not really doing the moving on the trucks.”

Sustainability, travel

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Jones said two approaches set Adamantine Spine Moving apart from other companies.

“We pride ourselves on our sustainability initiatives,” he said. “We have a warehouse that's covered in solar panels. It’s about 10,000 square feet, but it costs maybe a couple of thousand a year to heat, cool and light it.

“And we also use a recycled ag product biodiesel to run our trucks. It gets delivered to our warehouse where we have a tank on site. So I think that makes us pretty unique.”

“But then the real big thing that makes us unique is that we've never met another moving company around the country as small as us that does as much long distance work from the outset,” Jones said. “One of the greatest benefits of the job is you get paid to travel. … Trucking is a fascinating and pretty diverse world.”

Half the company’s revenue comes from long distance work, largely because Iowa City and Des Moines, to some extent, “are places where people come for a time and then leave. They may get their training here and then they are off to the coasts, for example. … We run tractor trailers which most little mom and pop companies don't do.”

‘Making people happy’

Over the years, the company has also carved out some specialty niches, including assisting with senior moves, art and antique moves, piano moving and vehicle moves. It offers packing and storage services, too.

“I love making people happy,” Jones said of his work. “I say our work is much more like dating than it is like a marriage. … You have to put on your best face and bust your butt for our clients and be really polite and do things that are extra.”

Also, he said, it’s nice to “be physically active and using your body to serve others. It’s great to have them be grateful for your work.”

Challenges arise, of course.

“The complexity of people's individual situations is so high that every move is like a custom creation,” Jones said. “They want their bed moved last minute, or they don’t want us to touch their office, or they need us to store their items for a week before they can move into their new home.

“And then you multiply that by 2,000 or 2,500 moves a year and try to make it all work efficiently. It’s an endless challenge, and the surprising thing is that most people are happy at the end of it most of the time.”

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Busy summers

The company has grown to about 55 employees in the offseason and then balloons to double that size for the busy season from May to August.

Jones now spends most of his time working on the business side of things, thinking about systems and processes.

He said he and his partner would like to grow the business from $6 million in revenue to $12 million.

“The growth of business now depends on the personal growth and professional growth of me and the other owners,” he said, noting they are implementing open book management to have more transparency with employees to create an ownership mentality.

“That all requires more cooperation and organizational skills and clarity and better meetings,” he said. “Those were things we didn’t have before and now I have the time to do that design level work.

“And I have been able to join a lot of coaching and leadership groups to help us as we work on our vision and values. It’s been interesting. We are a 22-year old business, but in terms of professional organization, we are sort of in the life stage of a teenager.”

Know a business that should be considered for a “My Biz” feature? Let us know by emailing mary.sharp@thegazette.com.