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Chicago, Illinois – New World announces Mike Brannan to the position of Executive Vice President, Global Business Development and Kevin Rich to the position of Executive Vice President of Business Diversification.

Mike Brannan joined the New World family on May 11, 2020. Reporting to David Marx, President, Mike’s role as Executive Vice President, Global Business Development encompasses full responsibilities of global account management and business development for both New World Van Lines and New World International.

Within an accomplished career of 30-plus years with Cartus, Mike held various senior leadership positions including General Manager, Senior Vice President Account Management and Senior Vice President Global Supply Chain and Intercultural Services.

David said, “Mike’s deep understanding of client needs across the entire global relocation industry will prove to be immensely helpful in retaining and growing our global national account business.”

Mike demonstrates his leadership in team building, sales growth, developing strategic initiatives and exceeding business goals.

Kevin Rich is transitioning into his new role as Executive Vice President of Business Diversification. Kevin will be focused on the exploration, assessment, identification and development of diverse business channels and strategies for New World’s future.

New World has entrusted Kevin to lead the effort of recognizing and evaluating opportunities in our fast-changing world with emerging markets, new work-life patterns, customer demographics, preferences and needs demand concentrated work.

David emphasizes Kevin’s positive impact and said, “Kevin’s successful history and commitment to both the industry and New World make him well-suited to help New World research, develop and bring to light new revenue opportunities.”

Mike and Kevin have been working together to transition the sales team and all of the New World national accounts under Mike’s leadership. Mike will now join the New World Executive Team, and Kevin will remain a member of the New World Executive Team.

New World knows behind every great company there are great people. Each year the company is proud to recognize the hard working, passionate employees and contractors who make New World a place of integrity, innovation and passion.

New World’s Annual Banquet and Awards was set to occur on the evening of Thursday, March 26th. The company planned to host the annual in-person gala during New World’s yearly manager meeting in Chicago.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a statewide stay-at-home order for Illinois was put into effect on Saturday, March 21st. In response to the stay-at-home order, New World transitioned the gala online for the first time in company history. Renamed as the Quarantine Gala, the purpose to recognize achievements and celebrate employees and contractors remained the same, despite the distance apart.

David Marx, partner, kicked off the New World Quarantine Gala with opening remarks that recognized several company achievements made within the year of 2019. David concluded his opening remarks by saying, “Now let’s get on to the show, awards and recognition!”

New World aims to perform each job with total customer satisfaction. The Overall Quality Award encompasses the achievement of that goal and distinguishes superior service. New World Colorado, the winner of the Overall Quality Award, has embodied that superior service and continually leaves their customers smiling. Chief Operating Officer Greg Hoover said, “Quality is an everyday discipline and it requires hard work to establish, improve and maintain.” Congratulations New World Colorado (1^st), New World New Jersey (2^nd) and New World California (3^rd) on your achievements!

Safety is crucial to New World’s everyday operations and the overall success of the company. From the safety of the customer’s belongings to the safety New World ensures on the road, the well-being of every employee and customer is at the forefront of New World’s business. New World Colorado’s efforts to execute safety as a top priority are recognized by winning the Service Center Safety Award. Quintin Marx, partner, recognized New World Colorado’s team and said, “Congratulations to New World Van Lines of Colorado. James, you and your crew do a fabulous job.” New World Colorado (1^st), New World San Francisco (2^nd) and New World Missouri (3^rd), each have exemplified these qualities and kept their team members, customers and the roads safe.

Quintin said, “Being one of our core values, safety is at the most upwards importance to all of us.”

In addition to the Service Center Safety Award, New World awarded three other categories that encompass the value of safety, classified as the Perfect Performance Awards. Ed Marx, partner, introduced these new awards and said, “We have not done it before, but I don’t know we’ve achieved all this before.” 

Congratulations to the following Perfect Performance Award winners for their ground-breaking accomplishments.

With over one hundred years in the moving industry, New World is no stranger to the stress that can overwhelm people while moving. New World’s customers rely on the informative and friendly customer service the company provides to guide them through each step of their move. New World recognized Amanda Shamoun, Cinnamon Krongard, Crystal Levy, Erin Parizek, Janae Lang, Julie Fierro, Katie Grady and Sharon De La Pena with the Customer Service Excellence Award. Mr. Hoover said, “Congratulations to our eight winners and the entire customer service department of New World Van Lines on a job well done. Outstanding.”

New World continually strives to treat customers like family and treat their belongings like their own. New World is expected to stand by that promise by ensuring minimal to no damage to their customer’s belongings. Ed emphasizes the impact of this award by stating “Lower claims lead to higher quality scores.”

This is demonstrated through the work of New World California, the winner of the Overall Lowest Claims award. New World California (1^st), New World North Carolina (2^nd) and New World Arizona (3^rd) are outstanding examples of what it means to treat customers like family.

Another award New World recognizes is the Most Unpacking Award. This award speaks to the efficiency and success of the winner, New World Dallas. Ed complimented New World Dallas by saying, “One of the things that stand out is how willing they are to help each other to guarantee success.” New World Dallas (1^st), New World Washington (2^nd) and New World Florida (3^rd) your hard work is admired.

The final award New World recognized for the 2019 year is the Service Center of the Year Award. David highlighted the significance of this award by saying “This is by far the hardest and most prestigious award to win.”

New World extended a sincere congratulations to New World California for winning the Service Center of the Year Award and for an amazing year. With 16 service centers across the United States, this award speaks volume to the hard work of each member of the New World California team. 

New World concluded the Quarantine Gala by thanking all employees nationwide and globally for their hard work and dedication to the company. Ed expressed his gratitude to all employees in his closing statements and said, “The dedication to our customers by all of you is nothing short of heroic. I’m proud to call all you my family.”

The New World Culture Committee, also known as the NWCC, came together Friday morning to show employee appreciation.  As New World’s busy season is in full swing, the Chicago employees were greeted with Coffee, Tea, Granola bars, Fruit, and Yogurt.  The NWCC will be greeting employees every Friday morning in June.

In preparation for the upcoming busy season, over fifty participants from New World’s Operations and Customer Service departments gathered for lunch and a team building exercise.  Areas included were Planning, Dispatch and Drivers Services, New World Transportation, and all of the Move Coordinators and Customer Service Support team.

“Sometimes it’s easy to forget how all of these areas work together to deliver an exceptional experience for our customer,” explained Greg Hoover, New World’s Chief Operating Officer.  “We wanted to bring these teams together and remind them how their success and the customer’s move is dependent upon all of us working with each other to achieve the same goal.”

Staff members were divided into groups that worked together to build packing protection around a raw egg, with a goal of the egg surviving a drop from the height of nine feet.  Seven of the eight teams were successful, and the group shared deli sandwiches, chips, and cookies for lunch while introducing themselves and talking about their various roles in the organization.

“This is part of an ongoing program that Patti Garrett of our Customer Service area is leading,” said Hoover. “We’re planning on various activities every two to three months—Including job shadowing—so that our teams can get to know each other, learn to communicate better, and see the challenges that their counterparts face on a daily basis.  Our goal is to improve communication, processes, and teamwork.  Hats off to Patti for her leadership and a job well done!”

New World Van Lines congratulates Omar Avellaneda on completing his first IRONMAN competition at the Memorial Hermann IRONMAN North American Champion. The race was held on April 27th, 2019 in The Woodlands, Texas. Omar is a Class A Driver out of our Houston, Texas Service center and has been with New World since 2007.

The Memorial Hermann IRONMAN Texas consisted of a 2.4 mile swim in Lake Woodlands, followed by a 112-mile bike ride through east Texas, and concluded with a 26.2 mile run in The Woodlands.

Omar completed this monumental task in 15 hours, 52 minutes, and 39 seconds.

Congratulations Omar!

“Lift While you Climb.”

That was the theme of the Women in Tech event hosted by Google Cloud on March 8th, International Women’s Day, at Google’s Fulton Market Headquarters in Chicago.

Today, only 20% of positions in tech are filled by women, and only 2% of tech leadership positions are held by women. As we are currently living in a technological revolution discussions about women in tech are timely and important.

The keynote speaker Felecia Hatcher, named White House Champion of Change by the Obama Administration, teaches women “how to take up as much space as possible”. According to Felicia, most of women will miss opportunities they want because they’re dressed in overalls & look like work. What we want never looks like what we want it to. Whether it’s a career choice, a solution to a problem at work, or the next innovative idea, opportunities rarely fall in laps, and it is women’s responsibility to actively seek out and, sometimes, create our opportunities. When choosing a goal and creating a plan it is important to be specific in what you are trying to achieve. If you are not specific in your goals, you leave them up to everyone around you.

There was also a great panel lead by Caroline Rile, Field Sales Manager at Google Cloud with Jennifer Brown, K-12 Education Strategist at CDW, Cory Libgot, Lead Product Manager at DocuSign, Deb Coome, Sr. Director of Enterprise Data and Analytics at Ulta, and Andrea Chang, Technology Solutions Delivery at National Restaurant Association. Almost all of them started outside the tech field but pursued positions outside their comfort zone and found themselves in technology. They discussed the importance of surrounding yourself by your own “board of directors” and support group, whether it’s through networking, a professional woman in business group at work, or at meetups, taking a leap of faith and letting your voice be heard by making suggestions and bringing up ideas in the workplace. Deb Coomer’s daughter created and pushed through the maternity leave policy at her workplace, Jennifer Brown showed initiative by submitting suggestions about improving a program just one month into her new position.

Although many women suffer from imposter syndrome and find themselves fearful of climbing up, we can help each other by supporting each other, being a friendly ear, offering a word of advice, or just reminding each other of what we already have accomplished. We need to ask for and accept help more often. Fear of failure should not keep us in the sidelines but motivate us to create our next opportunity. After all, people won’t remember the mistakes you make, but they will remember how you handled them.

Here at New World Van lines our Innovation Team is 50% women. The Innovation Team has produced amazing software solutions internally that allow us to stay connected to our staff, drivers, clients and transferees with information that helps relocation less stressful. From our drive app that lets drivers on the road see their workload, schedules and gives them the ability to check in and checkout notifying transferees on site that we are here to help to our new operations program that allows our staff to see, plan and schedule all services needed for a move from one connected screen.

With a diverse and balanced team, we continue to think of and innovate new solutions by pursuing and creating our own opportunities. And that’s how New World keeps climbing, lifting all our departments with new innovative solutions on its way up.

Sasha Goldina representing NWVL

David and Patty Marx traveled to Panama City, Panama to represent New World International at the 50th Anniversary of the Latin America and Caribbean Movers Association (LACMA) from 2/17 to 2/21/19.

With more than 225 participants in attendance from around the world, the LACMA conference enables attendees to meet, engage, learn, and collaborate together.

The original Panama City was founded in 1519 but was destroyed by fire in 1671. The city was rebuilt in 1673 about 5 miles from the old city center. The people of Panama are friendly, helpful, and full of pride for their beautiful country. Today, Panama City is home to approximately 1.8 million people – nearly half of the country’s population – and has the feeling of a major metropolitan city, joining many generations and cultures together in one place.

While in Panama the entire group toured the Panama Canal which was amazing to see. The group was taken to the original lock system, which finished construction in 1914, and a recently opened expansion of the system, finished more than 100 years later, in 2015. The canal is now capable of supporting cargo ships carrying up to 13,000 shipping containers at a time and can cost upwards of $1,000,000 USD to pass through. Despite the cost, the canal is still a tremendous benefit to shipping companies, as it takes an average of 9 hours to cross the canal system, compared to two weeks of additional sailing time if traveling a route around South America. Time is money.

In addition to the canal tour, LACMA held a very nice dinner and celebration among the ruins of the Old City, Panama Viejo.

At business meetings the speakers talked about continual change in the moving industry, the impact data and artificial intelligence will have on our business, the power of computers, and how we all must embrace the change and change our companies to remain relevant.

It is important that New World attends these global meetings to improve our presence around the world, our ability to work with partners globally to better serve the needs of our clients and to grow our international business.

At the end of March, Edwin Ooms, David and Patty Marx will attend the FIDI meeting in Amsterdam, the Netherlands where they will also visit New World’s Rotterdam office.

To start off 2019, New World Van Lines is focusing on one of their core values: People. Three New World Employees completed multiple training session and spent many hours of their own time to became certified MAGIC® trainers.

Make A Great Impression on the Customer, also known as MAGIC®, is a 16 hour course that focuses on creating a culture based on exceptional service.  The program, which was created by Communico Ltd has been around for over 40 years, teaches employees to lead internal and external customer interactions, handle difficult situations, and make a great impression with every interaction.

Jackie, Meggan and Kori, our dedicated training team, have led the very first week of on-site training this week.  Over the next 10 months every employee including office, driver and mover will receive MAGIC training.

The managing director of NWI, Edwin Ooms, travelled to England, Belgium, Holland and France to meet with customers, network partners, and to see NWI’s new offices in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Rotterdam is home to the largest port in Europe and known as “the gateway to Europe” due to its deep-rooted trade history and robust logistics distribution system that feeds the rest of Europe.  On top of that Rotterdam was named European City of the year in 2015 for its tolerance, diversity and unique modern architecture.  Therefore, it is a very fitting location for our International office that serves our customers in the European, Middle-East and Africa (EMEA) time zones.  The new offices are in Rotterdam’s distribution area “Albrandswaard” and housed in the facilities of our partner KLG.

It was an exciting and productive trip filled with great visits to show our appreciation for the industry, develop new business and meet our NWI-EMEA team.