Boots on the Ground didn’t start with a business plan. There was no strategy session, organizational chart or five-year plan. It started with three moving company owners becoming friends.

Around 2020, Ben Yeager, Justin Miller and I found ourselves spending more time together through the industry. We owned similarly sized, asset-based moving companies, shared a vision, and operated largely in different markets.

At first, it was simply three friends helping each other operate. During peak season, warehouse space is precious. But if one of Ben’s or Justin’s drivers needed to get empty in one of my markets, we’d find a way to unload him, even when we wouldn’t necessarily have opened the warehouse to someone else. They did the same for us.

That’s where the trust came from. We learned how each other operated when things were difficult, not when they were easy. Then an opportunity changed everything.

Several military TSPs associated with a well-known van line became available when that company was closing. Each of us had independently identified the opportunity and intended to pursue it separately. Once we realized we were all looking at the same thing, the obvious question became: Why are we doing this separately?

We decided to pursue it together.

When we acquired the TSPs and created the first Boots on the Ground corporate entity, the partnership became real. We had invested together and tied our success together. We also discovered BOTG’s greatest advantage: the three of us brought very different strengths.

My strengths are contracts, legal work, negotiation, and communication. I build our RFP proposals, draft legal documents, negotiate contracts, and handle much of BOTG’s professional communication.

Ben’s strengths are operations and sales. He knows how to build, manage, grow, and market asset-based moving companies. Today, our Ohio general manager reports to Ben, and Ben drives that operation forward.

Justin brought a network of trusted bankers, accountants, insurance professionals, and advisors who became BOTG’s administrative backbone. His banking relationship helped finance our Ohio acquisition. His independent accountant handles our TSP financials, and his insurance broker insures the BOTG companies.

To me, that’s what “stronger together” actually means. Sometimes it means knowing when not to be the smartest guy in the room. I don’t need to pretend I know more than Ben about running an operation. Ben doesn’t need to write the RFP. And we don’t need to search for a banker when Justin already has one we can trust.

That ability to rely on one another has allowed BOTG to move quickly when opportunities appeared. For example, some of the initial TSPs we acquired had international military approval, which led to our next big step: becoming an international military move manager.

Once that became a successful enterprise, we decided to test the partnership in an entirely different way. We would open an asset-based location together; not as DN, Day, or Pikes, but as BOTG.

We had selected Dayton, Ohio, when an opportunity to acquire American Way Van & Storage presented itself. We took it. Our Ohio operation has become a laboratory for BOTG. Rather than recreating DN Van Lines, Pikes Peak, or Day Transfer, we’re taking what works best from each; the employee-only labor model I’ve developed at DN, Pikes Peak’s operating software, and systems, relationships and experience from all three organizations.

Then came what I consider our biggest validation yet. Boots on the Ground was recently awarded the DPM contract servicing Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. None of our companies had ever won a DPM contract independently. Together, we did.

I don’t believe we could have done it without the collective skill set we spent years building. The proposal and contracting work mattered. The operation Ben helped build mattered. The financial and administrative infrastructure Justin brought mattered. Most importantly, the trust we built allowed us to put those pieces together and move quickly. That’s when the partnership made the difference.

To me, adaptability isn’t about predicting what’s going to change. It’s about building an organization that can respond when change happens. Instead of trying to develop every capability within one company, we’ve surrounded ourselves with people who bring different strengths and trust each other enough to let the right person lead.

We’re continuing to build on that model. We recently hired longtime industry leader David Vegas as Chief Strategy Officer to drive our next stage of growth and diversification, and in 2027 BOTG will host Dispatchers in Clearwater, Florida, marking BOTG’s important role in the military moving ecosystem.

Six years ago, none of those things were part of the plan. But we didn’t need to predict what was coming. We needed to be ready for it. That’s the advantage we built on purpose. We’re stronger together.