By Will Pafford, Staff Writer
West Lake Hills resident Brad Armstrong has been a lawyer, an entrepreneur, an author and an actor.
Now that he is 50 years old, he’s trying to decide what he wants to be for the next 50 years.
One of Armstrong’s most enduring endeavors is Blue Whale Moving and Storage, a moving company he started with partners 20 years ago and now fully owns.
Armstrong began the company in 1989 after he realized he did not like his career as a lawyer.
Armstrong saw that he wasn’t in control of his own schedule; his office staff filled his calendar that determined his daily work.
“I didn’t like that so much,” he says. “That wasn’t much fun.”
Although it began on a napkin during lunch, Blue Whale has won numerous awards. It’s grown to provide things people need to move both in Texas and out of state, including boxes and other materials.
The company also receives and delivers high-end furniture.
Blue Whale has given Armstrong a unique opportunity to involve his children, Hunter and Kate Armstrong, in the business and teach them lessons they would never learn in school.
Armstrong put his children on the board of directors so they could gain this real-life business experience.
They learned how to read financial statements and balance sheets and how to ask good questions about the budget and operations.
The teaching role comes naturally to Armstrong, and he is likely to philosophize and quote physicists, mathematicians and other great thinkers during conversations.
He says he enjoys offering people a different perspective on their problems, and that people often feel comfortable sharing their lives with him.
One of Armstrong’s favorite people to quote is Buckminster Fuller.
Armstrong is so fascinated by Fuller that he even wrote a one-man play based on his life, in which Armstrong played the late thinker.
He performed the play at the Zachary Scott Theatre Center and also in New York City in 2000.
He has not only written plays but will also soon release a still untitled book about parenting.
Another book he is mulling is based around his working title, “A Good Death.”
The book will examine what people can learn about their lives from the way they wish to die someday.
If people can figure out how they want to die, they can learn how they want to live every day, he says.
“You’ve got a choice every day,” he says.
His longest project so far, however, is Blue Whale.
His son, Hunter, now works at the company, working with technical support, marketing, sales and in whatever other role he is needed.
Armstrong did not hire Hunter, however, General Manager Mark Conley recruited him.
“I wasn’t even involved in the process at all,” Armstrong says. “Mark’s really the man in charge.”
Conley worked at Blue Whale as a mover about 18 years ago in Houston.
He worked for Blue Whale for about five years, but left to work for other companies and even start his own.
Conley’s wife, an employee of Blue Whale who Conley met while working at the company, saw the need for him to come back to the company as general manager.
Armstrong calls Conley a management savant.
“He’s a natural at it,” Armstrong says. “He has turned the company around.”
Although Blue Whale has had its share of ups and downs throughout its history, Armstrong says he is confident that the company’s commitment to customer service and excellence is making the downs less severe.
“It’s a maturing process,” he says. “I’m still learning.”