After the peaks and valleys of another busy summer season, CMSA’s fall chapter meetings are underway. Steve Weitekamp and I have started our round of visiting all 12 chapters throughout the state. Our first three stops took us to Twin Counties in Redlands, San Diego, and OC Beach Cities.
Somewhere along the way, I started thinking about gold.
I’ve been re-listening to a podcast about the California Gold Rush. In January 1848, James Marshall was working on a sawmill along the American River when something shiny caught his eye. Marshall and John Sutter tried to keep the discovery quiet, but this was one secret that wasn’t going to stay secret for long.
Enter Sam Brannan.
Brannan was a Mormon elder, newspaper publisher, and merchant who heard the rumors and went to investigate for himself. When he returned to San Francisco, he famously paraded through the streets with a bottle of gold dust, announcing that gold had been found on the American River. Gold fever took off.
More than 175 years later, gold still has a way of getting people’s attention.
At a recent price of roughly $4,469 per troy ounce, it certainly caught mine.
And here’s a fun distinction: gold is measured in troy ounces, which aren’t the same as the regular ounces we’re accustomed to. A troy ounce is about 31.1 grams, compared with about 28.35 grams in a regular ounce.
Now, movers know a thing or two about weight. We spend enough time looking at certified scale tickets to prove it.
So naturally, I weighed the CMSA directory.
9.75 ounces.
If the CMSA directory were made of solid gold, it would be worth somewhere around $39,700.
Not bad for a directory.
But after our first three chapter visits, I’m beginning to think the real one might be worth more.
What interests me about the Gold Rush isn’t just the gold. It’s the curiosity, ingenuity, and resolve that came with it. People arrived in California from all over the world, facing unfamiliar terrain, difficult conditions, and plenty of uncertainty. When one approach didn’t work, they tried another. New tools and methods developed, communities grew, and California changed at an extraordinary pace.
The Gold Rush is, of course, a complicated and often brutal chapter in California’s history. My interest here isn’t romanticizing it, but there are lessons in how people responded to tremendous change and uncertainty. I see some of that same spirit in our industry.
We survived another summer. It was muddy and messy at times. Some of us struck gold, some probably spent a good part of the season digging for it, and most of us experienced a little of both.
Fall gives us a chance to come back together, compare notes, and figure out what’s next.
Our first few stops have reminded me just how much experience exists within CMSA.
While in San Diego, we had the opportunity to visit Tom and Linda Oakley and their daughter Sara at Atlas Transfer & Storage in Poway. The Oakleys are a generational moving family, and you can feel that history throughout their operation. Tom has carefully curated a collection of model moving trucks and industry memorabilia that is beautifully displayed throughout the property.
Equally impressive: their setup for drivers. Coffee, clean restrooms, and a comfortable break room. A driver’s paradise.
We also visited Jeff Nadeau at DeWitt Move Worldwide. His office was pristine, his music taste impeccable, and it’s hard to spend time with Jeff without learning something. Between his involvement with PAIMA, IAM, ATA, and CMSA, nearly a decade of board service with the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Diego, and years in freight forwarding and international moving, there was plenty to talk about.
At California Relocation Services in Garden Grove, former CMSA Chairwoman Shiree Hammer gave us a warehouse tour that quickly turned into an education in international moving and origin and destination services. There is also the legacy of her grandfather and former Chairman, Joe Hammer, another reminder of how much history and knowledge in our industry gets passed from one generation to the next.
At the chapter meetings themselves, I enjoyed meeting Tim Burgess of Burgess Moving & Storage, Larry Lammers of Ace Relocation, and Roberta Hart and Nanette Tayrien of Circle Moving & Storage, and talking with members about changes in our industry, opportunities ahead, rogue movers, disruptors, and what everyone is seeing in their own corner of California.
There were golden nuggets everywhere we went, and I don’t mean the kind Marshall found in the American River. A story here, a piece of advice there, something learned over decades in the business. More than the knowledge itself, I appreciated the kindness and generosity behind it. People opened their doors, gave us their time, and genuinely seemed happy to share what they knew.
A special thank you to chapter presidents Ed Coelho, Andria Skiff, and Julie Gerrick for the great food, leadership, and service, and to our associate members who keep putting in the miles to support our chapters.
When I first put that directory on the scale, I was curious about its literal weight in gold. After these first few stops, I think I was measuring the wrong thing.
A scale can’t measure experience passed from one generation to another, friendships built through the association, or the generosity of someone willing to open their doors and share what they’ve learned.
Maybe that’s what “worth its weight in gold” really means.
And if I’ve made you even slightly curious about California’s original Gold Rush, I recommend the BBC’s In Our Time: The California Gold Rush. I’ve been re-listening to it lately.
Apparently, when I’m not talking about moving, I’m listening to people talk about people moving to California in 1849.