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COMPANY HISTORY International Van Lines, Inc. was founded by Mr. Jack Smith in 1958. Originally, International was an independant moving company that only served the Santa Maria Valley. In 1967 International Van Lines was purchased by Mr. Robert McEwan. Mr. McEwan moved to Santa Maria from Oxnard, California where he had been helping his father operate Mecury Van & Storage. Realizing that International could not continue to grow at a steady pace without representing a national and worldwide van line, Mr. McEwan acquired an agency agreement with Republic Van Lines. At that time, Republic Van Lines was the seventh largest Mover in the United States. After becoming an agent for Republic, International began performing military moves for Vandenberg Air Force Base. In order to meet the demands of the Air Force, overseas, office, and industrial moving became part of the business mix. In the mid-seventies, when corporate down-sizing was begining to really take effect, Republic Van lines did not do so. This, in combination with several other economic factors caused the company to fail in 1977. Once again, International Van Lines was an independant moving company. This time however, business was booming on the central coast. The need to represent a worldwide van line was evident. In the same year that Republic Van Lines went bankrupt, International Van Van lines became agents for Burnham Van Service. While Burnham served the traditional moving public, they were also the world's leader in moving computers, electronics, and sensitive equipment. This provided an entirely new line of business for International to expand into and develop. Throughout the eighties, International Van Lines (or "IVL" as it known locally) continued to grow, and became the primary packing and crating contractor for Vandenberg Air Force Base. Again, expanding into yet another new line of business. Continued growth was eminent. Towards the end of the eighties, Robert McEwan's health began to decline. He had been operating the company with his son Chris for quite some time, and now seemed the time to retire. In 1990 Chris McEwan bought International Van Lines from his father. Chris' idea of what the company should be was a little different than that of his father's. International was now returning to focusing on it's original line of business - moving household furniture. Part of this change was to no longer represent Burham Van Service, and to become an agent for the world's largest mover, Allied Van Lines. Chris McEwan's direction for the company was to continue to serve all of their customer's needs such as office moving, industrial moving, shipping computers and electronics, and packing and crating. In addition though, the new focus was to become the very best household furniture mover possible. This focus continues today, and the sucess of that focus shows in the "25 Excellence in Customer Service" awards presented to International by Allied Van Lines. Allied has given these awards to International based on how customers that have actually used our services have rated our company. This is not just some polling of the general public. We must average a score of 4.45 out of 5 in our customer's opinion, over 12 months to receive an award. A few of the organizations that have used our services: ITT Corporation Santa Barbara County The State of California Prudential/California Realty SMOOTH Transportaion Boeing Aerospace
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