Raleigh Bruner, who founded Wildcat Moving, recently took ownership of the iconic wildcat statue that once fronted the old Mr. D’s Batters Box sporting goods store in Lexington. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
Eight years ago, Raleigh Bruner placed an ad on Craigslist, offering to help people move for $25 an hour. His crew was modest—just himself, his younger brother and a former college roommate—and his moving fleet consisted of little more than a Ford Bronco and motorcycle trailer. But the calls rolled in, and he was busy around the clock.
So much so that within six months, Bruner bought his first real moving truck (a retired 26-foot U-Haul), and he soon found himself wondering: Am I really starting my own moving company?
It hasn’t been an easy haul by any measure. The company almost ran aground in 2012, when it received a letter from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet saying Bruner needed a “certificate of necessity” to operate legally in the Commonwealth. His company’s fortunes were saved only after Bruner teamed up with the Pacific Legal Foundation, an economic liberty firm out of California, and mounted a successful two-year federal court challenge to the law that Bruner said was essentially a “competitor’s veto,” thwarting any new moving company from entering the marketplace.
Bruner, however, was confident his team would prevail, saying they were guided by the same principle that’s helped his company get to where it is today.
Former Wildcat Moving employees have gone on to become partners in similar moving businesses, based on the Wildcat model, in at least 15 other cities. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
“We try to be fair in everything we do: fair to our customers, fair to our movers and fair to our business partners,” Bruner said. “I didn’t have anyone telling me how to run a moving company, so I built it on common sense.”
Bruner, who earned an MBA from the University of Kentucky in 2010, said it didn’t take a business degree to know what made for a successful moving company—reliable workers who were respectful to customers. But to retain good people, Bruner said he knew he had to pay them well. So he sought to keep overhead low—buying used trucks on the cheap and fixing them up—which helped ensure that he could offer better wages, anywhere from $17 to $22 an hour, to his movers.
“Our website was crummy, and our trucks were older. But when our movers showed up at a job, our clients really liked us. Our people were really good. We showed up on time. And we had clean-cut, responsible guys." —Wildcat Moving founder Raleigh Bruner
“Our website was crummy, and our trucks were older. But when our movers showed up at a job, our clients really liked us,” Bruner said. “Our people were really good. We showed up on time. And we had clean-cut, responsible guys.”
That helped the company grow its market share quickly. To retain its reputation, Bruner installed some company-wide rules. All his movers signed agreements that held them accountable, saying they’d be on time and dressed in uniform (blue Wildcat Moving T-shirts). Violate the rules, and the employee would get a warning and be paid minimum wage for that day’s work.
“We pay them well, but we run a tight ship,” Bruner said. “And there’s a mutual respect in that. They understand the logic—there’s a huge correlation between late movers and complaints. So we want everyone on our team to be pulling the company in the right direction.”
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Wildcat Moving helped transport art works in the Book Benches project. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
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The 37 fiberglass benches were each decorated to represent a Kentucky author and sponsored by local businesses. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
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The benches were displayed in Gratz Park before being placed in public spaces around town. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
Wildcat Moving’s protracted court battle also brought some unexpected windfalls. For starters, the fledgling company garnered a whirl-wind of media attention, serving as the center-piece for an episode of John Stossel’s “War on the Little Guy” television program and earning mention in a nationally syndicated George Will column.
It also served as a wake-up call for Bruner, who said the threat posed to his livelihood made him rethink how he structured and grew the business.
“If the judge had ruled the other way, Wildcat Moving could have been taken away from me,” Bruner said. “So I didn’t want to have all my eggs in one basket.”
Bruner sought to diversify and expand, searching for opportunities for auxiliary services that might complement his moving company. He started with home inspections and soon branched into other areas, such as carpet cleaning, home organizing, pressure washing and storage. Today, the Wildcat brand extends to some nine other independently managed businesses, including everything from a dog kennel retreat to auto and furniture repair.
In addition, Bruner said, he created an in-house program for employees so they could learn the moving trade, advance through the ranks and ultimately open their own moving company in a new city as an owner and managing partner (with Bruner serving as a silent partner).
That program led to the founding of Cardinal Moving in Louisville in 2014 and soon branched to 14 other cities in eight states, including Florida, Texas, Missouri, Tennessee and the Carolinas—all with former Wildcat employees at the helm.
Raleigh Bruner stands in front of one of the company’s newly repainted and rebranded trucks. Bruner has grown the company to include a fleet of 19 trucks and a number of affiliated businesses. / Photo by Reggie Beehner
“That’s a big motivator for employees when they see they’re not in a dead-end job,” Bruner said. “We want them to be looking at the big picture and looking to grow. We’re very careful about who we choose for managing partners. But if everybody’s pulling the right way, it works well for everyone.”
The network of moving companies also has helped spur innovation. For instance, when its Charlotte company found success employing an online scheduling application on its website, the other cities adopted it too.
“That’s the good thing about the network,” Bruner said. “If something goes well, it spreads to the rest of us.”
The network has also helped contribute to the launch in 2015 of Wildcat Freight, an interstate trucking arm that follows the playbook pioneered by ABF and PODS, the canister companies. The venture has doubled its revenues each year, from $160,000 in 2015 to more than $1 million in 2017. And Bruner said he envisions a day when it will be able to compete with the big national players in the interstate moving industry.
These days, Bruner’s role at the company, he said, is largely big-picture oriented, making sure all the moving parts are working in concert.
“I set up everything so that I don’t constantly have to be involved,” Bruner said. “We have good managers and managing partners, so things run just fine without me. But it took awhile to get to that point.”
But he still loves finding ways to grow the Wildcat brand. The company recently launched a rebranding effort, painting and decaling the company’s truck fleet. And Bruner was overjoyed when he took possession earlier this year of the iconic 12-foot wildcat statue that once fronted the old Mr. D’s Batters Box sporting goods store in Lexington and now presides over Wildcat Moving’s office on Big Run Road.
“It’s easy to see now how it all falls together, but I didn’t at the beginning,” Bruner said. “I just saw the momentum we had and thought we could run a better moving company than anybody else.”