TWO MEN AND A TRUCK®, the nation's largest franchised moving company, recently announced it has awarded its fourth annual $50,000 Mary Ellen's Moving People Forward Scholarship to Liz Friedmann, a sales manager with the St. Louis, Mo., location. The scholarship was created to help existing TWO MEN AND A TRUCK employees invest in their own franchise with the company after going through a year-long training program and creating a business plan to open a new location with their current franchisee.

This year, for the first time, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK also awarded smaller scholarships to runner-ups. Like Friedmann, the three runner-ups will apply their scholarship money toward the startup costs of their TWO MEN AND A TRUCK franchises.

Employees who want to apply for this scholarship must submit an application that explains their contribution to the overall success of the brand, their strengths and weaknesses as a leader, the skills they wish to develop through their participation in the program, a time they faced a difficult or challenging situation and how they handled it, and their plan to balance the scholarship program commitment requirements with their existing responsibilities.

Chief Talent Officer Sara Bennett praised Friedmann and the rest of the 2018 finalists who put their all into this program.

"We're proud of all four candidates, their dedication to the program and their strong work ethic to complete the courses and tasks asked of them," said Bennett. "We're thrilled to award Liz as this year's winner. Her supervisors had nothing but wonderful things to say about her leadership skills, strong work ethic and willingness to learn. As a franchisee, we know she will bring a great deal of knowledge and perspective to the table, and we're looking forward to seeing her and the other scholarship winners get their locations up and running."

This year's scholarship program participants initially started off at TWO MEN AND A TRUCK as operations managers, customer service representatives and drivers. Employee advancement isn't a new idea for the brand. For decades, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK has focused on providing its employees with professional development and growth opportunities, and the scholarship is an extension of the ongoing initiative, offering a formalized program with financial benefit.

Of the company's management staff, 75 percent started out in entry-level positions and one-third of the company's franchisees started off in frontline positions as movers, drivers or customer service representatives.

"At TWO MEN AND A TRUCK we believe in moving people forward and this purpose has set up paths to allow anyone in the company to grow as much as they want to grow," said TWO MEN AND A TRUCK President Randy Shacka. "Our extensive list of employees who have been able to move up is proof that we have an excellent culture that fosters growth at all levels within the company."

Shacka himself first joined TWO MEN AND A TRUCK as an intern more than 15 years ago.

"What has always impressed me from the beginning is TWO MEN AND A TRUCK's willingness to help all employees advance in their careers," Shacka said. "Whether they're movers, drivers, managers or even an intern like I was, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK is willing to invest in its people, train them and help them move forward in their careers."

The scholarship news comes as TWO MEN AND A TRUCK gets ready to finish the year on a strong note while on pace to grow for the ninth consecutive year. Today, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK has over 6,500 system employees and 2,900 system trucks completing approximately 2.5 moves per minute.

"2018 has been a terrific year for us, and we plan to keep that momentum going in 2019," said TWO MEN AND A TRUCK CEO Jon Nobis. "We are serving more customers than in the history of the company, and at the same time establishing new record customer referral rates, which is the ultimate winning combination. We met several milestones this year including our seven millionth move in May, and in June we achieved the highest sales we've ever seen during a month in our 33-year history. This speaks well of our strong franchise system, which is proven to work in any market. As we watch this year's scholarship winners bring talent and energy to uptapped areas, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK gets the chance to expand into new cities to provide consumers with a truly special moving experience with The Movers Who Care®."

ABOUT TWO MEN AND A TRUCK®
Headquartered in Michigan, TWO MEN AND A TRUCK is the largest franchised moving company in North America. Currently there are more than 390 locations and 2,900 trucks operating in 43 U.S. states in addition to Canada, Ireland, and the UK. TWO MEN AND A TRUCK has performed more than 7 million moves since its inception in 1985. The company has seen consistent monthly growth dating back to December 2009. In 2018, Entrepreneur Magazine ranked TWO MEN AND A TRUCK  as one of the top 500 franchises in the U.S for the 24th consecutive year and ranked the company No. 1 in the moving/junk removal category for the third year in a row. In 2017, the company also made the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America for the fourth time. Each location is independently owned and operated. For franchising opportunities, visit https://franchise.twomenandatruck.com/.