COMPANY HISTORY

Mergenthaler Transfer & Storage Company is a diversified transportation company with headquarter offices located in Helena, Montana. The business was formed by two brothers, Arthur and Nick Mergenthaler on March 28, 1934. A short time later, Nick Mergenthaler purchased a dairy farm and sold his portion of the business to Art.

At the start, the Company's assets consisted of one 1933 Dodge half-ton pickup with a canopy valued at $100. The main source of income was from delivering grocery orders for Brownlow Grocery, Helena Avenue Meats, and Hennessy's Grocery. The charge for this service was five cents per stop. Many orders had one hundred pound sacks of sugar, flour or potatoes, kerosene for lanterns, and groceries. The business went along for quite a few years doing similar types of work, growing some but still mostly involved in small package delivery. 

It wasn't until the early 1950's that the business started expanding. The Company acquired a United States Postal contract between the Helena Post Office and the local train depot. Mail was put onto the Northern Pacific Railroad and the Great Northern "Galloping Goose". A permit was acquired for transportation between Helena and Canyon Ferry Dam. While the dam was under construction, Mergenthaler's hauled everything from steel rebar to laundry and mail for the bunk houses. 

Also during this time, Mergenthaler's did local drayage work for a number of freight companies, staring with Butte-Helena Motor Freight, Western Express, and United Buckingham. The Company continued to operate in this mode until the mid-1960's. 

During the late 1960's, the Company expanded with statewide household goods authority being purchased and Mergenthaler Transfer & Storage began offering interstate and intrastate moving for the first time. A new warehouse was built at 1414 North Montana Avenue consisting of 8,000 square feet. At this time, Mergenthaler's had one semi and two bobtails leased to United Van Lines hauling to various locations, mostly within the 11 Western States.

In June of 1972, Arthur Mergenthaler suffered a severe stroke and passed away. His four sons, Chuck, Jerry, Jay, and Bob elected to purchase the business from their mother and continue to run it as a Montana corporation. The business was still depending heavily on freight at this time, although in July, 1972, United Buckingham gave two weeks notice that they were pulling out of Montana and closing the terminal in Helena. At this point all efforts were diverted to the moving and storage business. Things seemed to be going well and another blow hit. 

On January 2, 1975, the warehouse at 1414 North Montana Avenue was burglarized and set on fire. The business was fortunate at this time - it had a good reputation and a great bunch of employees. Determined to grow, the warehouse was rebuilt in less than three months. That spring brought lots of hard work, cleaning up, and settling claims, but demand for our services was good and the business managed to continue growing. All through the late 1970's and early 1980's Mergenthaler's continued to grow, adding more trucks and more employees. It had reached a point where it was doing most of the larger office moves in Helena, such as the new Federal Building and the new Highway Complex. The Company built its own repair shop and opened it under the name of Truck Power Repairs & Service. 

In November 1997, Truck Power became Western Star Trucks of Montana, a full-service heavy truck dealer authorized with CAT, Cummins, and Detroit. Western Star now has 16 employees with revenues of $2.8 million. In February 1998, they moved into a state-of-the-art 12,000 square foot building located off Carter Drive in Helena. In the first year Western Star sold 21 trucks and had $375,000 in gross parts sales. 

During 1981, the Company acquired contracts with U.S. West to transport telephone installation equipment from Utah to various points in Montana. Today, Mergenthaler Transfer & Storage serves Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Utah for U.S. West. U.S. West worked as the catalyst for Mergenthaler Transfer & Storage to reenter the freight business. 

In April, 1986, the Company acquired general commodities authority for the forty-eight states and started into the LTL (Less Than Truckload) freight business by opening an office in Salt Lake City, Utah. The new operation offered and continues to offer overnight service to all major cities in Montana. Revenue generated on the first day of LTL operations was comprised of one shipment paying $29.50. Within the year, the LTL operation was generating revenue in excess of $3,000 a day. Currently, revenues average $25,000 a day and over 500 bills.

In April, 1988, the Company purchased an existing United Van Lines franchise and operation in Bozeman, Montana. Since the acquisition, annual revenue from this operation has increased from $500,000 to $2.1 million. The Bozeman operation continues to play a major role in the Company's success of the household goods/furniture moving business. In October 1995, Bozeman moved into a 20,000 square foot facility on five acres.

In March 1991, Mergenthaler Transfer & Storage Company entered into an interline agreement with ABF Freight Systems to deliver LTL freight from ABF's terminal in Billings to points in Montana. This marketing agreement, along with other interline agreements, resulted in an increase in LTL freight revenue of 116% during the next year.

Now all four brothers are retired and Jerry's two sons, Dan and Steve own and operate the business. The Company currently has offices located in Helena, Great Falls, Bozeman, Billings, Missoula, and Kalispell, Montana, Salt Lake City, Utah, Spokane and Kent, Washington, and Portland, Oregon and employs 285 full-time employees. Total revenue for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1992 exceeded $8.3 million - an increase of 44% since 1989. Total revenue for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1999 exceeded $22 million - an increase of 265% since 1992. 

Mergenthaler Transfer & Storage's household goods and furniture operations continue to be a major contributor to the success of the Company. This area accounts for 41% of total company revenue and has continued to show strong growth annually. With household goods and moving operations in four locations - Bozeman, Kalispell, Salt Lake City, and Helena - Mergenthaler Transfer & Storage continues to be one of the largest van line's within the State of Montana. Salt Lake City was opened in January 1997 and will do $2.2 million in revenue for 1998. This facility has potential to be bigger than all six Montana local companies combined.