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Spokane Daily tells the stories of how local people actually make a living. Join Jethro Jones, the Optimization Doc, for conversations with Spokane-area business owners about why they started, how their businesses make money, what's working, and what they're building next. From solo operators and family businesses to growing local companies, each episode goes inside the work: the people, numbers, decisions, and challenges behind the business. Hear practical lessons you can use, discover businesses worth knowing, and meet the people shaping Spokane's business community. When we talk about AI, we focus on what it means for local businesses.
Matt Cortez: But when we dug into looking at an employee owned company, you know, they saw there's a lot of other parties involved. I shouldn't say a lot, but there are a few other parties involved where, you know, you have your bank, you have your trust, you know, you have your lawyers, you know, and you know, they all need to make their profit too, you know, they need to get paid for their services as well. problem. By the time, you know, the company is paid for to the owners that are selling, by the time the trust is paid, by the time the bank is paid, by the time the lawyers are paid, there wouldn't be anything left over for the employees.
Jethro Jones: Welcome to Spokane Daily. I'm your host, Jethro Jones. I run Optimization Doc where I help businesses optimize their businesses so that they can either sell them or become cash cows for the owner. Today we are talking with Matt Cortez of De Vries moving packing storage and his website is De Vries Moving .com Is it De Vries or De Vries? I should have asked that before we started.
Matt Cortez: It's okay. It's debris.
Jethro Jones: I got it right. Few. Okay. All right. So what do you do and who do you do it for Matt?
Matt Cortez: I am the president of the debris moving packing storage or debris moving Yeah, who I do it for it's Center for the employees of the company the community And moving is kind of a can be in a central part of or any community anywhere in the world really whether if it's residential moving or commercial moving, you know, it's a service that fits all it needs.
Jethro Jones: Yeah, for sure. So you bought the business from someone, so tell me why you bought it and a little bit about you working there for a long time before him.
Matt Cortez: Sure, sure. Yeah, we've been around since 1981, was originally started started by Mike DeVries and his dad, Bill. I came on, it's a little over eight years ago, they were looking to hire a, at that point in time, DeVries was being managed, being run by Mike DeVries and his wife, Becky DeVries. And they were looking to bring on a general manager just to kind of lighten their load a little bit. At the time really, you know, no thought of retirement from Mike. Anyway, Becky had plans of retiring, but Mike was planning on working until the end, I guess we would say. Then as things went along, I kept taking more and more off of Mike's plate. At the had never had a general manager before, so they weren't sure what to, you know, completely what to expect. And as I know, I, like I said, kept taking more and more off of his plate and, you know, essentially, freeing up some more time from them, then we started, a company started getting offers from other moving companies, whether those moving companies were, you know, They were larger moving companies from out -of -state, different states, different areas, and essentially looking to turn our location to one of their branches. So Mike and I sat down and discussed it, and he said, you know, I had been in the moving industry for quite some time. I worked for some larger moving companies, and he said, you know, you've been through this before on both sides, you know, whether you're a company acquiring somebody, or you The other end of it, where the company worked for was acquired, to kind of walk me through that process, what does that entail besides them acquiring our assets? I said, well, I said, yes, the asset part is correct, I said, but then the brand goes away. The brand is gone. The DeVries brand, the DeVries moving has gone a lot of times, companies, they might maintain that name for six months a year maybe your plus just because it's been so entrenched in the community for so long but eventually they will want their own name in there or they might just do it right away so you know that that's step one there and then the other one is typically with employees branches already have a lot of the office positions filled because they have A lot of folks, a lot of things that our folks do here in the office, they already have somebody in their corporate office that does those jobs. So they would typically maintain their employment here for six months a year, maybe a little over, but eventually they're going to say, well, we already have somebody that does this and we kind of just kept on just for the transition, but don't really need any more. And understandably so, you know, they're not gonna any company isn't gonna you know pay two people to do one person's job It just yeah
Jethro Jones: doesn't
Matt Cortez: make sense Yeah
Jethro Jones: So Matt you mentioned before that you do this for the employees And so part of you taking this over was being able to ensure those employees still had a job and had a place to work And that was
Matt Cortez: controlled here
Jethro Jones: locally in Spokane and not like some corporate office in in Omaha where they may not have any Connection at all to our people here you
Matt Cortez: are a hundred percent correct actually that was a large part of our conversation and a huge part of the decision
Jethro Jones: yeah it
Matt Cortez: was one of the things I let them know was like it was just saying they're gone and we have a lot of employees here that have worked for the company for a long long time employees that have been here for 10 15 20 plus years we have one employee you know during 30 years with us. We have our fleet of long haul drivers that have been with us for a lot of them. A lot of them have been with us for quite some time. Our crew members, the guys that do the work out in the field, some of them have been with us for a very long time. The drivers and the crew members, their jobs wouldn't be so much in jeopardy because they're going to need them.
Jethro Jones: For sure.
Matt Cortez: The sales folks, their jobs typically not in jeopardy because because they still need to push sales, but people in the office. So yes, that was a huge part of my decision, was trying to keep the brand afloat that has been in town for a long, long time because it became to a point where it wasn't just a company made wasn't just a family name. It was a brand, that's a bit entrenched in the community.
Jethro Jones: Yeah, so let's talk about the numbers. How does the business make money, revenue, customers,
Matt Cortez: average
Jethro Jones: sale, things like that. Whatever you want to talk about there.
Matt Cortez: No, I don't typically, I don't disclose a revenue that's something that we typically don't make public, but ways that we generate revenue.
Jethro Jones: So
Matt Cortez: there's household goods moving, and that's a few different facets in that, but we're also an agent for Atlas Van Lines. Happy to be an agent for Atlas Van Lines. We've been an agent for them for 45 years now, and a great, great relationship there. So there's local moving for household goods, where people people are just moving in town, you know, they sell their house and move into a bigger house or maybe they're downsizing them into a smaller house or maybe they're moving into a retirement community. You know, we do a lot of moving there. Then you have your entrust state moving, which is long distance moving, but staying inside the state of Washington. Then there's interstate moving, which, again, I mentioned we're an agent for Atlas van lines. Then there's commercial moving. Commercial moving when a company is, let's say they're opening up a new location, they're moving from one location to another, their company is decided that they want to downsize a little or they're growing and they're moving into a bigger space or opening up a new space, maybe a new factory, maybe a new whatever it is. So we'll facilitate those moves there, because we can also provide not just moving the contents of the office, but also the furniture as well. If it's systems furniture like cubicles, we can provide commercial and furniture installation services. So, also that too, if a company is growing and they open up a new location where they're just refreshing their office and they want to install new systems furniture and new cubicles. We can receive those goods in our warehouse, deliver a map when needed, and build them as necessary.
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
Matt Cortez: Then there's military moving. We do a lot of work for military families. at least. That's also a combination of local and long -haul work. And then here in town with Fairchild Air Force Base being not far from us, we provide local moving services for the family members of Fairchild Air Force Base when the base needs to shuffle their service members from one home to another. Warehouseing distribution, we also provide a lot of warehousing distribution in the area. For hotels, that's a big one for us, so when hotels are renovating, or if you notice a lot of new hotels go up in the area, because the inland northwest is growing for tourism, So a lot of hotels are being built. So when that happens, as the construction, the building is going up, they will send us all of their FF &E, so the furniture, fixtures, and equipment will get sent to our warehouse. Hospitals in the area as well. So for hospital furniture, hospital equipment, that'll come into our warehouse. You know, times we'll do the big MRI's and the MRI machines. We'll get sent to our warehouse. We get them onto a local truck and get them delivered over. Those are a lot of fun, because they weigh about 5 ,000 pounds.
Jethro Jones: All right. Now, I didn't tell you this question in advance, but I want to talk more about the succession plan of you
Matt Cortez: taking
Jethro Jones: over. Can you go into a little bit of detail about how you had those conversations with the owner? How you help them see the value and you don't have to reveal the prices, but like what you bought up for anything like that. But more like, how do you, how do you talk about that where they may think that the business is worth more than it actually is, or less than it actually is, and their perception of it may be different than reality because they've been in it and working so hard on it. That especially is one question that I'm
Matt Cortez: curious
Jethro Jones: about.
Matt Cortez: Yeah, no, that's actually you bring up all your points for that question. The value of it, you know, we took the time to value the actual assets of the company. You know, What is our equipment worth? What is the furniture worth in the building? So the purchase price, which we did in owner finance, was a little bit of goodwill towards the current customers that the company has, which was a very honest portion. And then basically, hey, here's what the assets of the company are worth. And there was a shared degree upon between both parties.
Jethro Jones: So they're probably getting offers that I imagine were higher from a big corporate office that has more money and could pay them out in cash right there, rather than a seller -financed thing. And the commitment to the community was what pushed them towards selling to you instead of one of those big companies.
Matt Cortez: Sort of. So the end price was, they were very similar because of being an asset purchase. it's only worth so much. You can't manipulate the cost of those assets. One of the big differences there for Mike and Becky with selling to me and my partners, for my partners, part of this succession plan were employees of the company. They don't get paid as fast. Because now there's payments that are made as opposed to, hey, here's your check. Have a nice day. Yeah.
Jethro Jones: So that's the other question that I have. The the partnership is you and a group of the employees.
Matt Cortez: Correct. So I guess that we were getting a bunch of offers. So one of the things we looked at me purchasing the company. And I said, you know, I like the idea. I don't, I'm gonna say I didn't like it. But I said, you know, in X amount of years, company is going to be in the same spot. The same exact position. So we looked at doing an ESOP, an employee -owned company. And I said, I really like that concept because everything that I was looking to do when they were looking at it would be encompassed in that.
Jethro Jones: Yeah.
Matt Cortez: So again, it's like, well, no, because we're not, you know, if we were a larger company, it very would be a different story there. But for our size, it didn't make sense. So So then we said, all right, we'll work, we'll be back to square one, where I purchased the company, which again, I wasn't entirely comfortable with, just because it seemed like at some point in time we'd be back to square one. So we talked about bringing on some employees as partners from the company as part of that the owner of finance sale and what we did was we took our operation manager at the time who's now were vice president of operations years of experience in the moving industry not at the time not too many years of experience with us but years of experience in the moving industry and also local to the area then Then we had one of our salespeople who, at the time, was later 20s, but had been working here since high school
Jethro Jones: and
Matt Cortez: worked his way up from just a helper in the field, just a guy that, you know, packing boxes, carrying furniture, et to becoming a driver, that salesman to record that we ever had. And then our office manager, who's very dedicated to the company, and both of those two at the time were in their later 20s. So the concept there was, you know, we have people that work for us that we want, you know, then and the other employees to be able to keep their employment here and grow the company, keep the brand and alive, but also, you know, give us time for this accession, you know, give us the length and, you know, future for growth and stability to keep the debris, you know, the debris in the end going for another 45 years at least.
Jethro Jones: I'm really excited to hear about that kind of stuff because so many times we think about building a company and then retiring and selling or I've talked to a lot of business owners lately who say if somebody doesn't want to buy this for what I want to sell it for, just shut There are people working there, you know, and it's like, that's, uh, that's kind of a bummer for them to be like, Oh, I don't have a job anymore. And
Matt Cortez: you wake up one morning and go, Oh, no.
Jethro Jones: Yeah. Yeah. That's too.
Matt Cortez: Oh, my, my wife or husband will I tell my children, you know, I tell my landlord or the mortgage company.
Jethro Jones: Exactly. Yeah. And like people can go find other jobs, but that's, it's a lot harder to find a job than to keep a job, especially if you like the job and you like what you're doing and you like the people you work with and all that. So, and there's something really beautiful about this multi -generational, well -organized succession plan that makes it easy for people to stay in the business, grow with it.
Matt Cortez: Yeah. You know, Jordan and Mark are their names that, you know, when Justin, when I come to retired, you know, Justin, Jordan and Mark can take my shares over. When Justin's ready, then, you know, Jordan and Mark can take his and, you know, at their age is that, you know, that gives him, also gives him the time to learn.
Jethro Jones: What should people in Spokane know about you and how can they connect with you?
Matt Cortez: To know about us, we've been in town for, like I said, we're celebrating our 45th year. Actually, just this past October, it was our 45th year in business, and we're really excited about that, proud of that, because it's not an easy feat. To get active with us, pretty simple. You can call us 509924600 or our website of reasonoving .com anybody can go to our website connect with us with that or again pick up phone give us a call we're a little bit old school we like chatting on the phone
Jethro Jones: that's that's that's not a bad thing that is a feature of these days alright time for the rapid fire questions what is the
Matt Cortez: what
Jethro Jones: is the best business this decision you've ever made.
Matt Cortez: Coming up with a succession plan with the degrees family to keep the company. Yeah,
Jethro Jones: that's awesome. What local businesses deserve a shout out?
Matt Cortez: You know, I saw that question, gave it a lot of thought and three companies came
Jethro Jones: to me.
Matt Cortez: They're actually three nonprofits.
Jethro Jones: Oh, good.
Matt Cortez: That do great work in our community. There's Christ Kitchen, the YWCA, and Family Promise.
Jethro Jones: Okay, very good. Everybody make sure you go check those out also. And what do you want to accomplish with DeVries in the next 12 months?
Matt Cortez: You know, we'd like to grow more business. You know, the real estate market is pretty interesting right now, so hoping that the real estate market does a little bit of turnaround and we I can't say everything because our business is always something and
Jethro Jones: that's
Matt Cortez: one of the It gives them plenty of time to learn all the facets of our organization, of our business. Like I mentioned, we have a lot of different business segments. We have the household goods moving, that's the local interstate interstate. There's a commercial moving that, you know, think about all the different types of businesses are out there and how many different types of
Jethro Jones: things
Matt Cortez: they need to be. from just offices, to factories, to warehousing, all different kinds of stuff there, then you know, still being able to support Fairchild Air Force Base over here, military family members, you know, to be able to, you know, learn that, that segmentally, you know, itself, and then there's the storage, you know, people also need storage. And the warehousing distribution, there's a lot for them to learn all the way across the board and it gives them time to like so keep the uh the company on
Jethro Jones: yeah that's great well matt this has been awesome chatting with you thanks so much for your time and thanks for being part of spoke canadaily once again folks you can check out davreeze moving at davreezemoving .com thanks so much for being here and have a great day