Bart McCorquodale
B.S., 1997
Founder and owner, McCorquodale Transfer  “I started McCorquodale Transfer completely by myself with a $3,000 truck in 1996. One other guy and I were doing everything at first, but the company has expanded rapidly over the last 10 years. We’re in a bunch of different markets now. In ’98 we started a branch in Mobile, Alabama; in ’99 we started one in Destin, Florida; and in 2001 we opened a branch in Pensacola. We’ve also expanded into Charleston and Greenville, South Carolina, and last year we moved into Jackson, Mississippi. In 2008 we’re expanding into Savannah, Georgia.” |
Bart McCorquodale, a native of Jackson, Alabama, was working at a manufacturing company in New York City when he began hearing frequent complaints from various companies about how hard it was to move antiques and major furniture pieces in the Southeast. In 1995, McCorquodale decided to respond to those concerns and start a moving business of his own in Birmingham; he also enrolled at UAB to complete his bachelor's degree. On the move from New York back to Alabama:
“I decided that instead of keeping the job with the company that I had, I would start out on my own—much to my parents’ dismay—and move back to Birmingham. And I basically started from scratch here. When we started, a lot of the online retailers and companies like Restoration Hardware, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and Crate and Barrel were in their infancy and needed delivery services. I had always helped deliver furniture as a child—my dad was in the furniture business, so I worked with his delivery crew throughout my high-school years, and that gave me a background in it. Soon we started shipping antique furniture and moving household goods.” |
McCorquodale earned a political-science degree from UAB’s Department of Government in 1997. Going back to school and running a growing business simultaneously was a challenge, he says, but one that he enjoyed thanks to a number of inspiring professors. On his experience at UAB:
“I have always liked politics, and I really loved my professors at UAB. Beverly Hawk is one of my most favorite people in the world. When I was there she was very involved, and she was just a wonderful teacher . . . I was really impressed with how much Dr. Hawk took an interest in me. I wasn’t a straight-A student, I was just trying to get by. But she really took a lot of extra time to help me and made going to class—which was something that I really dreaded doing, because I was trying to run a business—a fun thing for me. She went above and beyond the care required by a professor. And now she’s a customer of ours also.” |
From high-end antiques, McCorquodale soon expanded into a variety of services, including warehouse storage and both residential and commercial moving on a wide range of scales. Over more than a decade of moving, he says he’s been entrusted with the care of some very unusual items. On his company and the unique items he’s dealt with:
“We’ve moved a $30-million piece of art . . . a $500,000 chest of drawers . . . antique chests . . . we do a lot of really exotic stuff. Which makes my job very interesting, getting all of these wonderful projects and being involved with their care. We have a well-trained and well-educated staff, and we have very low turnover with our company. We really take pride that McCorquodale Transfer is run like a family business.” |
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