Making Moves: ASU
grad applies skills to fast-growing moving company .

When Justin Hodge graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism in 2006, he had no idea he would be using the skills he learned there to lead the fastest-growing moving company in Arizona.

Two years after graduating, Hodge teamed up with his longtime friend Josh Jurhill and started moving families across town with just their muscles and a pickup trailer. Fast-forward a decade later and the guys turned their startup into Muscular Moving Men, a company that now employs nearly 100 people and moves nearly 400 families every year.

“Back in 2008, it was a combination of things. Financially, we needed to start making money for his life, my life. I was starting a family, Josh was looking to free himself from his fulltime business of the insurance world,” Hodge says. “We just started moving people after-hours off of Craigslist and different types of services. We thought ‘Wow, we could literally make hundreds of dollars doing this.”’

Even though Hodge is not a journalist, he says the skills he learned at the Cronkite School helped him throughout his whole career at Muscular Moving Men.

“You know, it’s funny, when you start a moving company with your best friend and you’re like, ‘Why did I get a degree from the journalism, public relations and broadcasting school? What was I thinking?’ and you know, as time goes on, you start to realize that you do have to use those skills on a daily basis,” Hodge says.

“With public relations, we get to go out there and let everybody know about our business. We get the chance to sit down and do articles and be on TV. For awhile, I was responsible for all the content that went up on our websites. I would be writing who we are, what we do, why we’re different, and I’d be doing the marketing material that you have to put together to take out to the storages and apartments and all these places that refer you.”

Hodge seems to have efficiently put these skills in place as Muscular Moving Men continues to grow year after year at a rate of 30 to 40 percent. The company says that in the next seven years, they plan to expand up to 60 locations nationwide and put their name out in most major cities.

Through it all, Hodge gives thanks to his education.

“I’m grateful for the education I got from ASU, and being a Cronkite grad in particular is something that I’m definitely proud of.”

Written By: Hayden Weber, College Times.