OPERATIONS: GARY RICHIED – Page 6
This is my farewell tribute to our President and Chief Commanding Officer Sal Manso.
I wasn’t there when Sal began his career with Licata Moving, but I know that shortly after he started driving a truck on a part time basis, Leo Licata must have seen something special in him, because it wasn’t long before he was brought into the office to assist Dominic Salemi in dispatching the crews. As a new agent for Allied Van Lines, and with Sal on board, Leo went out and bought a couple of moving trucks and when he realized this potential and saw what Sal could do with them, he quickly bought a few more. It wasn’t long before he had a whole short haul fleet handling several Allied agent’s work throughout the Midwest. Not satisfied with this, Sal hired a couple of long haul drivers and Licata Moving was soon established as a dependable full-service moving company.
It was only a few years before Sal had this company busting at the seams, and Leo seized the opportunity to buy Reebie Storage, one of the original franchise companies of Allied Van Lines, a premier moving company that was struggling at the time. With all of that confidence in him, based on what he had done for Licata Moving, Leo immediately assigned the full duties and responsibilities of Reebie Storage to Sal when it was purchased. Once again Leo’s keen insight proved to be right on as within a year Sal had turned a company that was losing money every month to one that would be in the black from then on. He accomplished this by focusing his efforts on filling the seven story building with storage, which he would accomplish in just a few years.
Sal guided these two companies through the tumultuous 80s that started with the deregulation of the trucking industry which led to the demise of many trucking companies that just could not adjust. He led the way with setting a fair price for our services and proved to everyone that if you worked harder and longer than your competition; you would be successful, Sal actually used deregulation for what it was intended: to give consumers better value for their money. It was decided at this time to combine Licata Moving and Reebie Storage under one name for better brand recognition, efficiency, and all the advantages that come along with size. Now Sal found himself in charge of a multi-million dollar company that was making a handsome profit; but he was not done. Rather he was just getting started.
Having filled up the warehouse on Clark Street Sal encouraged Leo to find another warehouse, and true to form Leo came through once again. The warehouse on Mannheim in Franklin Park was purchased from Seven Santini Brothers, a United Van Lines agent. This made it possible for the equipment, and the work force, that had been operating out of the Division Street facility, to move to more central location place to better serve our customers. Now with Dominic overseeing the new location, like on Division Street, and Sal being the driving force of the business, the new warehouse was soon filled. So once again Leo was asked to find more warehouse space only this time he chose to buy the property and have the warehouse built. The land around the Mannheim Road warehouse was acquired and an addition was made to the existing building. A couple of years later that was filled and another addition was made. Soon after that a third addition was made, and with that someone boastfully acclaimed that “Leo keeps on building warehouses, and Sal keeps filling them up.”
Sal’s leadership was really put to the test when the negotiations to renew our contract with the local union reached an impasse. It turns out that Sal was offering our service providers a better compensation package for their current earnings and a guaranteed retirement benefit, than the disreputable teamsters pension fund could assure them. He was able to convince the majority of employees that they would be better in the long run with a company assisted 401K retirement fund that was theirs to own rather than relying on the managers of the pension fund who were continually under investigation. That, along with a shared percentage pay on the moving jobs, allowing for higher pay for more efficient work, was something that was disagreeable to the union. Health insurance was provided and a quality dispatch program was instituted to insure that safety and quality were not compromised for the sake of profitability.
It was also during this time that Sal pursued several other opportunities that he seized upon in order to make the company more diverse. While the core business of household goods moving and storage was continually growing, he saw the need to venture into other lines of work to offset the ups and downs of the local and long distance moving. He had Reebie enter into the International Relocation market and like everything else Reebie became a major player. First by securing the Amoco business in the Chicago area and then Dow Chemical worldwide, the International Department was created. He also had the foresight to see the vast potential of record storage, and with the acquisition of a five story warehouse at 1400 S. State Street, this business grew exponentially to the point where the DataBank Department was established. It didn’t take long for this thriving business to outgrow that location and another multi-story warehouse was purchased on North Clark St. allowing for full coverage of the city.
But the best was yet to come. You see Sal always had this dream of having the whole company under one roof, mainly for the efficiencies it would provide but also so that he could keep an eye on everything and be more involved in every aspect of every business line. So Leo doing what he did best purchased the parcel of land on Franklin Ave. that our headquarters sits on now. The building was designed and built to accommodate all the now expanded departments into one location. Since the Operations Department had moved to Franklin Park several years prior it would now be a matter of moving the Sales and Accounting Departments to Franklin Park where the whole company could be together again.
With the newly constructed 100,000 square foot, 50 foot high, warehouse completed with all new offices, and all the amenities of a cafeteria, a kitchen, and even showers we were given the occupancy green light right at the turn of the century. In true Reebie fashion the move in was accomplished with little difficulty over the course of a weekend in January 2000. By February everyone was settled in and had begun getting comfortable with the new phone system and computer software so that preparations for the upcoming moving season were not delayed. The consolidation continued as the record storage facilities on State St. and Clark St were emptied out and the contents moved to the warehouse on Mannheim in Franklin Park. The storage lots from the former headquarters at 2325 Clark were relocated to the new warehouse and this allowed for the creation of Store Your Things as a new business venture of self-storage. This has proven to be another great transition orchestrated by Sal as the company continued to diversify at his direction.
Now about this time you might be thinking that he was done, what with just about the entire company, its employees, trucks, and equipment now in Franklin Park, and the efficiencies of having all the departments together kicking in, what could be left to do? Another acquisition, that’s what. Never letting an opportunity pass him by he was able to negotiate the merger of Jackson Moving into the Reebie Companies and almost overnight we had a North American operation in Naperville. This too proved to be a real winner as it gave us a presence in the second largest city in Illinois.
All of this should give you a good idea of the magnitude of Sal’s accomplishments in bringing Reebie from a company on its knees to an industry leader. He took on a non-profitable company in Reebie Storage, combined it with fast-growing entity in Licata Moving, with combined annual revenues of $1M, and is departing from it now as a much more diverse enterprise that just had its best month ever with a June revenue of just under $3M. However it does not touch on the daily trials and tribulations that he encountered and overcame in the past 50 years. I am sure each one of these paragraphs of his great success could easily be a chapter, if a biography was to be written about him.
Yet, all of his business brilliance still pales in comparison to his personal life where he is a devout Catholic as a Eucharistic Minister, who at one time considered becoming a deacon of the Church, with nine children, umpteen grandchildren and who knows how many great grandchildren. Truly a remarkable man.
My good and gracious God was certainly guiding me on the right path when I came looking to Sal for a job over 43 years ago. I will forever be indebted to Sal for the way he cared for and nurtured this company. Through his safe keeping it has always provided me the means to earn a comfortable living and assured me the ability to take care of my family’s needs.
I hope and pray that the Good Lord grants him a long, happy, and healthy retirement so that it is everything he wants it to be.
Peace and Prayers, Gary