FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT: RICHARD LICATA – Page 2
SAL MANSO AWARDS BANQUET – 2024
The New Year is a perfect time to reflect on the accomplishments of the past year and embrace the opportunities that lie ahead. Our recent Awards Banquet was a wonderful celebration of all we achieved in 2024. To everyone who attended—thank you for making it such a memorable event! For those who couldn’t join us, you were missed, and we hope to see you at next year’s celebration. I truly believe this was our best banquet yet!
Looking Back on the Year
This year has been tough, but gratifying! The high interest rates have really slowed down our core moving business. A lot of people just don’t want to give up their low 3% mortgage rates, so they aren’t moving. That’s been a challenge, but we’ve managed to keep things steady by focusing on other parts of the business.
Last year, I mentioned two big updates: relaunching SmartBox and the controversial merging our warehouse operations with All Chicagoland Moving & Storage. I’m happy to say both have paid off. SmartBox has grown 37%, and with All Chicagoland, our storage side has stayed steady while our competitors have seen a big drop. That’s a big deal since storage is still our top profit center.
We’ve also seen growth in a few other areas:
- Office & Industrial is up 8%.
- International business is up 24%, building on a great year last year.
- Record storage is up 7%.
- Self-storage has grown 12%.
While it’s great to look back on how Reebie has performed, I want to shift the focus to something even more meaningful—the impact Reebie has on our community. The work we do isn’t just about running a moving company; it’s about the lives we touch and the difference we make, together.
I’m most proud of the fact that Reebie provides us the means to support our families, put a roof over our heads, and invest in our children’s futures.
But, our success also enables us to give back, whether it’s through community projects, charities, or simply supporting local organizations. It’s truly a labor of Love!
Some of the organizations we support are as follows:
Susan G. Komen – investing in breakthrough research to prevent and cure breast cancer. Sporting our Pink Tee Shirts, we helped Allied raise over $35,000.
Gary Sinise Foundation – honoring our defenders, veterans, first responders, their families, and those in need.
Move for Hunger – a way for the relocation industry to reduce food waste and fight hunger.
- Reebie raised over 100,000 lbs. of food that is donated to Loaves & Fishes food bank.
- Loaves & Fishes wrote: We are so thankful for your support! You make it possible to continue the fight against hunger in our community and we couldn’t do it without you!
- These contributions helped us achieve the Agent of the Year award, for the second time, from Move for Hunger.
Our internal marketing committee also does a great job in getting us involved in other community projects. Some of those are as follows:
Santa Claus Luncheon – My sister is very generous in buying Christmas gifts for all our employee and their family members’ children.
Holiday Parades – We participate in numerous parades each year with our replica moving van at ATV cars handing our candy
Touch A Truck – Our first year doing this which was a big hit with the children taking pictures in our replica moving truck and their dads who preferred sitting in the Big Rig pretending they were the King of the Road!
Better Together Award – This is one of Allied most prestigious awards! They named Reebie as the Agent of the Year for being the most helpful to other Agents; exemplifying the Better Together philosophy. Here’s what one of our Agents had to say about Reebie.
