Johnson Storage & Moving

The Origin Story

Before Will Johnson started Johnson Storage & Moving, he was a blacksmith in Denver in 1900. Unfortunately he watched his trade become obsolete as two Stanley Steamers came rolling down South Broadway. While the neighbors cheered the horseless carriages, Johnson did the math: no horses, no horseshoes, no blacksmith. So he went to his wife Hazel with a new business plan. They had a building, and they thought maybe they could store stuff and then dray it to the railroad. That's how America moved long distances back then. Your belongings went on the rail.

He bought a couple of horses, started hauling shipments down to the railroad station, and storing household goods on the side. The blacksmith became a mover and the business kept growing. In 1947, Johnson became a founding agent of United Van Lines, helping launch the co-op van line it still hauls for today. The company just celebrated its 125th anniversary, and it's now in its fifth generation, with a twist. Mark and Jim Johnson, the fourth generation, had no kids in the business. Don Hindman wasn't family. He was a Chicago guy who'd practiced law before running Clark National, a food-service distribution business he and his dad grew from $65 million to $200 million before selling it in February 2010. He met Mark Johnson through the Young President's Organization right as the Johnsons were suffering from the Great Recession. Half their revenue was gone with the housing crash.

Hindman joined as an equity partner in April 2010 to rebuild the top line and eight years ago he and his team entered into a buy sell to acquire the business via installment sale. "I'm kind of the de facto fifth generation, even though I'm not family." Hindman and Co. didn't stop at restoring the lost revenue. Through acquisitions and new locations, the business quintupled revenue and has been growing ever since.

The Culture

When Hindman arrived, the Johnson brothers were operating the business via their intuitive sense of cash in and out. Hindman put in his previous company's financial package, replaced most of the management team, and rode out the turnover that followed. This kicked the hornet's nest. Hindman affectionately recalls when a COD sales rep came into his office to tell him that she didn't think much of him and was considering leaving. He told her she was free to go, but that if she stayed he'd double her income. She stayed and within two years had doubled her income. Sixteen years later, she's still with the company and her income has continued to rise.

There was a method to his madness. it was all about culture. johnson opens its financials to employees and shares up to 6% of pre-tax income through profit sharing, paid across three performance periods a year. in 2018 the company adopted eos, gino wickman's entrepreneurial operating system, and with it a set of core values the team calls airbc: accountability, integrity, respect, boundarylessness, compassion. johnson hires and fires by these principles. this includes top performers, including a #1-rated owner-operator hauling $500,000 in line haul who got caught lying about claims, cutting weight, and cooking his logbooks. he told hindman he couldn't be fired because he was the best driver in the business. "yeah, you probably are, but you're fired." hindman understands that standards and principles are what creates a winning culture.

Business Adventures

Hindman will tell you Johnson isn't just a moving company. It's a logistics, warehousing, and moving conglomerate across commercial office and industrial moving, last-mile logistics, an asset-based 3PL, an office furniture dealership, international freight forwarding, a military business, and the legacy household goods operation. This type of diversification is how they got to $130 million in revenue.

The customer story that best demonstrates how Johnson's entrepreneurial spirit is Amazon Web Services. Johnson's opened a supply chain warehouse for AWS next to a data center in Loudoun County, Virginia, and ran it well enough that AWS asked for more: first Oregon, where Johnson's had no presence and then the Netherlands. When the request grew to 30 more warehouses in three years, Hindman made the call: he sold the division.

Growth comes in cycles, and he's always intentional about which part of the cycle he's in. The last three years brought brand-new locations in Miami, Kansas City, and Indianapolis, two new buildings in San Diego, and an acquisition in North County with 30% growth overall, on a footprint that now spans 13 locations in eight states with 590,000+ square feet of storage. Johnson will soon flip back to profit mode, squeezing cash flow and earnings at every location. Then it's back on the gas on the topline.

The Field

The reputation of any moving company lives and dies on what happens between the truck pulling up and the last box being set down. Johnson's knows this, and it shows in how the Company invests in its crews. Quality assurance managers at each location don't work from a desk. They're out on job sites, running checks, verifying uniforms, and watching how crew leads manage their teams in real time.

New hires go through a structured onboarding that covers ergonomics, customer service, and cultural training. Many of Johnson's crew members are first- generation Hispanic workers, and the company takes nothing for granted. Professional etiquette such as the handshake, eye contact, and how to greet a customer at the door are part of the curriculum. Every crew member is UniGroup- certified and background checked before they step into a customer's home.

What sets the field operation apart, in Hindman's view is the crew leads. They're the ones holding the standard on-site, managing people under pressure, and representing the Johnson name when no one from corporate is watching. Building that layer of leadership into the field, and then actually holding it accountable, is what separates a company with good intentions from one that consistently executes. At Johnson's, the two happen to be the same thing.

Moving With Purpose

Ten years ago the Company started the Johnson Cares Foundation, which sets aside a percentage of company revenue for nonprofits serving people with disabilities: Easter Seals Colorado (where Hindman served on the board), Inclusive Higher Ed, UC Health, and others. Last year that came to a quarter of a million dollars spread across roughly ten charities. Beyond the foundation's checks, employees get paid days off through Johnson Gives Days to volunteer, cleaning up the Easter Seals camp each spring and working inside nonprofits the foundation supports, while the company donates free deliveries and storage for groups like the Children's Diabetes Foundation, the Girl Scouts Mile Hi Council, the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. That record has the company up for the Denver Business Journal's Partners in Philanthropy award.