Brian Bladen on Detroit’s Evolving Storage Needs

In this episode, host Mark Mann sits down with Brian Bladen, General Manager of PMF Trailer Rentals, Warehouse on Wheels’ brand in Detroit, to talk about trailer rental in Detroit, why companies there struggle for space close to their plants, how the Gordie Howe International Bridge has pushed border staging further out, and what storage trailers on a customer’s own lot cost against a lease. Brian, who started out in manufacturing and warehousing, describes a Livonia manufacturer that had 15 trailers moving just before Christmas, a customer in Wixom that cleared racks from its yard with five trailers, and 75 trailers that carried another customer through a move.

Key Takeaways

1. Brian started out where his customers are today. He worked in manufacturing and warehousing before moving into trailers about 12 years ago, first on the over-the-road side and then in storage leasing. When he walks a customer’s facility now, he sees problems he knew 20 years ago, and he says customers are put at ease because they know he has been in their shoes.
2. Detroit has warehouse space available, just not close enough. The biggest problem Brian hears is distance: space miles away means paying to move goods back and forth, and older buildings nearby need more upkeep. Many customers need space for three to four months but are asked to sign a one-year lease, often for far more space than they use. One customer needed about 2 to 3,000 square feet but was renting 7 to 10,000, so WOW brought five to seven trailers onto his yard and saved him thousands of dollars.
3. The Gordie Howe Bridge has pushed border staging further out. Building the bridge forced warehousing used by border-crossing companies to relocate, so goods moving to and from Canada are now staged 20, 30 or 40 miles out. Brian says that has meant backlogs, extra charges while goods sit on trailers, and charges from container owners who want their containers back, though he expects it to run more smoothly in the long term. When tariff talk ramped up and importers had nowhere to put their freight, WOW put in 20 or 30 trailers with 24 hours to get them there.
4. Customers decide how long they keep a trailer. Brian calls month-to-month terms one of his biggest selling points: a customer can keep a trailer for a month or a year, and there’s no lease to sign. By his figures, Detroit warehouse space runs almost $7.50 a square foot against $2.72 for a WOW trailer on the customer’s own lot, before the warehouse’s shuttle runs, extra handling, staff, insurance, taxes, utilities, maintenance, racks and forklifts. With the trailer on site, a switcher puts it in the dock in five minutes, against 35 minutes to bring it over.
5. Trailers on site keep product dry and docks clear. An automotive supplier that tried a tent found critters getting into every nook and cranny, while WOW’s trailers sit up off the ground, keep product dry and go right back in the dock, so forklifts stay indoors in bad weather. Brian says WOW’s drop lot service in Detroit takes congestion off customers’ docks, moving trailers to their own yard or holding them on WOW’s yard and bringing them back in a timely manner. As he puts it, time is money to these guys.

Episode Chapters

Click any timestamp to jump to that section on YouTube.

• 00:00 — Introducing Brian Bladen
• 04:02 — Detroit’s Biggest Space Headaches
• 08:20 — Tariffs, Bridges And Bottlenecks
• 11:56 — Trailers Versus A 10-Year Lease
• 15:56 — Retail Peaks And Relationships
• 20:48 — Winter, Safety And The Dock
• 25:44 — Hidden Costs And A Playbook
• 28:37 — Shredded Tires And 75 Trailers
• 32:18 — Signature Round
• 36:15 — Myths And Next Steps

Transcript

[00:00] Introducing Brian Bladen

Mark Mann: Welcome back to The Wow Factor. I’m your host, Dr. Mark Mann. For this episode of The Wow Factor, we turn our attention to the Motor City. Detroit remains the epicenter of North American automotive logistics, but the market is currently in a complex state of stabilization, with industrial vacancy hitting a cycle high of roughly 5 to 5.4% as of early 2026.

Today’s guest leads a team in Flat Rock, Michigan. His focus is on providing cost-effective, on-demand solutions to a region where automotive suppliers, comprising nearly one-third of the industrial inventory, are navigating significant shifts in production and electric vehicle commitments. PMF Trailer Rentals and Warehouse on Wheels Detroit General Manager Brian Bladen, welcome to the show.

Brian Bladen: Thank you, Mr. Mann. Thank you for having me.

Mark Mann: Absolutely. So Brian, before we get started, I have an easy question for you. Detroit Lions fan, Detroit Tigers fan, or all of the above?

Brian Bladen: Unfortunately, zero, sir. I’m an Indianapolis Colts fan.

Mark Mann: Oh, okay. Good. Good. I’m in Louisville, Kentucky, so Indy is just an hour and a half, two hours north of me. So I can handle that. That’s good. So, you lead PMF Trailer Rentals, which has a deep-rooted reputation in Detroit for reliability. How did your personal career path lead you to become the space maker for the Motor City’s biggest industries?

Brian Bladen: It’s kind of funny that you asked that question, Mark, because my career path actually started where a lot of these guys already are. I started within the manufacturing industry. I started in the warehousing industry before transferring over to the storage trailer business side of it. So I had a unique opportunity to be able to feel their pains and feel what they go through. So it started there, and then about 12 years ago I decided I wanted a career path change. So, I went into more of the over-the-road trailer side of things, and then the storage trailer side of leasing.

Mark Mann: Great. So, when they reach out to you, you know exactly what they’re talking about, because you’ve done it.

Brian Bladen: Yeah. I sold it drastically sometimes. When we talk about going out and visiting customers as a group here at WOW, when I go out there, I can literally walk around and say, “Oh man, I’m so sorry you’re still going through this stuff.” 20 years later, it’s still happening. So, it helps to be able to put them at ease when I talk to them, because they know I’ve been in their shoes somewhere in my career.

Mark Mann: Absolutely. So, you’re operating out of Flat Rock, right in the heart of the automotive corridor, but most of your customers are not automotive customers. What does a normal day look like for you when operations in and around Detroit are ramping up?

Brian Bladen: So, you’re right. I didn’t deal with a lot of outside companies outside of automotive. So, a typical day for us, it starts before the ramp-up even starts. They start bringing in raw goods prior to even starting their projects, or starting their, I like to call, peak season times for them, or whether there’s construction companies getting ready for the summer season. So, it starts then, they start ordering equipment, and so we have to be at the ready for them.

So, your typical Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday for us, what we’re doing is just listening to the customer, getting out there in the marketplace and being ready to assist them whenever their need arises, and trying to get in front of their need too, so we can kind of predict what’s going to happen for them.

[04:02] Detroit’s Biggest Space Headaches

Mark Mann: Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about that, about strategy and trying to predict what they need. Now, Warehouse on Wheels recently established this new Detroit footprint to meet what they call evolving storage needs. What was the specific market signal that told you guys, hey, Detroit needs more on-demand mobile storage right now?

Brian Bladen: So it really started after COVID. We started seeing that Detroit has a large warehousing market, but it’s not like the Ohios of the world, the Indianas of the world. And so we started seeing that they had a major need for on-site storage space, because a lot of their storage space would be miles away or an hour away that they could utilize. So Warehouse on Wheels saw that need. We saw that we can help with other needs as well, outside of just storage trailers too, with less space or whatever else that we could accommodate them with, being in a close proximity to the Detroit market. I mean, Flat Rock, we’re just a short 20 minutes south of there. So we offered a lot of valuable assets with our lots and our equipment.

Mark Mann: Great. And you’re right about Indiana and Ohio. Now, Detroit’s industrial vacancy, from what I read, is at a 5-year high, but it remains tighter than the national average. When you look at the Detroit market today, what are the three biggest space headaches your customers bring to you again and again?

Brian Bladen: So it keeps going back to this whole thing of: warehouse space is available, but it’s where it’s at in proximity to their locations. That seems to be the biggest one, and it’s a huge cost factor, because it’s not close, and so they have to transport back and forth. So that cost is huge. The other problem is, if there is something close, there’s a lot of older facilities that are requiring a lot more maintenance upkeep in their area. So that’s costing them more as well.

Then you have the other part of the problem, where they only need it for three to four months and they don’t want to sign a one-year lease. So then they have that issue. And then the last one is, if you do start, you have a huge cost. Our cost is up substantially here for warehouse space. I believe it’s $7.50, almost, a square foot here in the Detroit area. So then they’re having to pay for a huge amount of space that they technically have to sign a one-year lease for, that they’re not going to need that one year for. Or they’re not going to need the 100,000 or 50,000. They’re only going to need 20 or 30,000, but they have to sign for that space, and then they have problems subleasing out the space they don’t need. So, I mean, that’s a huge headache for our customers.

I have a customer that I just signed about four months ago that was having that problem. He only needed about enough space for 2 to 3,000 square foot, but he was having to rent out 7 to 10,000, and we were able to bring in five to seven trailers and just take care of that need right on his current yard and save thousands of dollars. He was so happy about that.

Mark Mann: That’s a great solution. And you’re right. I mean, not only do they not need the 7 to 10,000 square feet, but again, they’re signing a lease maybe up to three years, and they don’t need that either. And what I understand is you guys offer month-to-month. I mean, if they just need it for a month, you got them covered, right?

Brian Bladen: That’s one of my biggest selling points to our customers: we’re here if you just need it for a month or if you need it for a year. You decide. We’re not going to sign a lease for you. That’s open-ended design, I like to call it, for our customers. Huge selling point across our company for that.

It’s funny, because when you tell them that, they just look at you like, “I don’t have to sign?” “Sir, you don’t have to sign nothing. This is the price, and you keep it as long as you want.” Or ma’am. It’s awesome.

[08:20] Tariffs, Bridges And Bottlenecks

Mark Mann: Yeah, that’s fantastic. So, a lot of industrial suppliers and manufacturers in and around Detroit have been kind of in a holding pattern, because there have been some shifting capital commitments and tariffs and things like that. You guys are real close to the Canadian border. How are you seeing these companies use mobile storage to stay lean while they wait for their next big production green light?

Brian Bladen: So, some of the things that we have seen, and I’m ramping up with a current customer, brand new customer right now, is they still have to bring in the raw goods, even though they’ve ordered the raw goods months out in advance, before all this started. So, they still have to bring in the raw goods. So, while they’re being lean, they can’t afford to go to a warehouse. And we’re not talking 50, 60 to 100 trailer loads. We’re talking probably 20 to 30 for some of these smaller manufacturers that have that. So they don’t want to get another space. So we’re seeing our increase in being able to put trailers out to them, because we can just offload the containers that they’re bringing in and put it right on their property.

The other thing, the downside, is we have seen some slowdown, like you mentioned, and so some of them have unfortunately had to turn in equipment, but then they’re like, “Please don’t get rid of that, ’cause we’re going to need it in three months.” So, thank you for the flexibility for that as well.

Mark Mann: Absolutely. Now, I’m originally from Cincinnati, and so anytime I’ve ever gone to Detroit, I drive I-75 North, and I-75 North has been under construction since 1987, constantly. Right. So, I understand there’s a big Gordie Howe International Bridge going in there, right?

Brian Bladen: Yep. And they’re doing a lot of— Yeah, they’re doing a lot of improvements to some of the expressways.

Mark Mann: How is that changing Detroit infrastructure affecting where companies are choosing to stage their inventory? Like you just said, some of these manufacturing companies have to drive. I mean, they’re paying transportation costs to pull trailers halfway across the city.

Brian Bladen: So the Gordie Howe Bridge has actually created a whole new complexity, because they had to buy out all the businesses that— I can’t remember the exact square mileage that they bought up to build this bridge and put all new highways in and everything. But then it forced what was existing warehousing for border-crossing companies to relocate to other locations. And so in the long term it’s going to make it more smooth, but in the short term it’s created a bottleneck of getting goods to and from Canada. Well, even to and from Ohio to go to Canada, they have to find somewhere to stage it. So you’re seeing them stage it further and further out, 20, 30, 40 miles out now. So it’s creating a bottleneck on top of that, and they have limited space.

You do have border crossings in from Windsor coming over, but it’s really limited on how much space they can utilize right there. So, they’re having to bring it into their facilities and stage it, and they have nowhere. So, then they’re creating backlogs of getting the product. They’re creating extra charges because it’s sitting on the trailers, and then they’re creating charges from the container people, because they need that container back. So, it’s helping our business. Unfortunately, it’s hurting the customers here. But in the long term, it’s going to be amazing.

[11:56] Trailers Versus A 10-Year Lease

Mark Mann: Yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot of infrastructure changes, you know, going on up there. Let’s kind of change the topic to this idea of band-aid thinking versus long-term strategy. And you’ve already kind of touched on the 10-year warehouse commitments and that sort of thing, but you’ve mentioned that companies are ditching long-term leases for mobile warehousing. How do you convince— what’s it sound like? How do you convince a traditional Detroit supply chain manager, logistics manager, that a 53-foot dry van is a more robust strategy than that 10-year warehouse commitment?

Brian Bladen: A lot of their big pushback to me has been, “Well, if I use your trailer, then I have to pay someone to bring it into my dock, and there’s an extra cost there.” But then I told them the cost of our trailer versus their current warehouse space that they’re doing. So you have a $7.50 square foot versus a $2.72 foot trailer. So then you have that. So they start seeing dollar signs. But then you have to shuttle back and forth to their locations. Then you have to pay someone at the warehouse to load the trailer that’s at the warehouse and unload the trailer, pay the driver to come back over. Or you can take our trailer for $2.72 that is on your lot. You just pay a switcher to put it into your lot. You have your employee that is already unloading the trailer on site. You know which trailer the product is in, and you just load it and unload it.

And so sometimes we’ve had to actually let them try it before they buy it, a thing with us, and they realize, “Oh crap, it really does work out for us having it on site.” So we let them try it, and then they— it’s a lot more efficient for us, and call things actually now we’re from the running the warehouse, “but it’s on my site, and it takes five minutes to put the trailer in the dock versus 35 minutes to bring it to me. I’m not waiting, and I’m not worrying about shutdown time either, on top of everything.”

Mark Mann: Yeah. So much easier. And just being able to explain that to somebody is critical. So last week I spoke with Brady Rodgers. He’s the president of Mexican operations for Warehouse on Wheels. He mentioned to me that a one-day manufacturing delay can cost a company more than $30 million a day in some cases. How do the mobile storage options you provide at PMF provide that buffer needed to prevent a single parts delay from shutting down an entire assembly line?

Brian Bladen: It’s huge. As you know, Detroit is probably the creator of just-in-time inventory. So, they tried to limit their warehouse space, so they’re just bringing it in just in time. So, one of the biggest buffers, I mean, you’ve already hit on it, is just being able to have it on site at a cheap cost for them, that they can just move it right in and not shut down the line. The other part of the equation is that we can take that tool on a daily basis, have a route set up as well, with having our own drivers at our capacity that can meet their need. It helps alleviate shutdown time too.

Emergencies. I’ve had a manufacturer up in Livonia call me. Oh, this was just right before Christmas. They had this huge need that they had to get trailers from one warehouse to another. Their provider that they were utilizing couldn’t do it. We were there. We had 15 trailers rocking and rolling for them, and they just got it all set up. And so we offer a service to make sure that they’re not going to incur extra charges—

[15:56] Retail Peaks And Relationships

Mark Mann: That’s fantastic. It really is. When we think of Detroit, we automatically think of automotive, right? They invented that just-in-time model, right? JIT. But you actually have a very strong retail market there as well. So for the retail sector in Southeast Michigan, what is the sweet spot in their planning cycle? Do they have a calendar, like leading up to Christmas and all that? Is there a cycle for when they should move from internal storage to a WOW drop lot solution?

Brian Bladen: Absolutely. So, you have a lot of big retail warehouses up here, and they stay here. They start planning their year January, February. So, they know, like, the back-to-school season, the Christmas season, as I like to call it, Santa Claus coming to town season. They know all that. So when they’re planning it, they should really start looking around August or September at the latest. And if you’re doing it for the back to school, it should be May or June, because you know when your product line’s coming in.

So they start calling us for back to school usually around May or June, because they’re bringing in the material for that back to school. And then for Christmas, typically I’ve seen September at the latest they start picking up storage trailers for that, and they want everything on site by October, because everything through retail really does start before Thanksgiving. And then, as we all know, the day after Thanksgiving shopping is just huge. So it really helps them to regulate when to have the trailers, that say, really cycle in starting in January, February, knowing when to do it.

Mark Mann: Yeah. And that just-in-time model there leaves little room for error, right? And so, because of that, relationship building is paramount in those situations. There’s a lot of communication going on. I heard that you have been working on a relationship with a particular customer since October, and based on that relationship they reached out to you with a need this week. Tell me about that.

Brian Bladen: Yeah, so it’s a customer that I— I like to do cold calls. I love going in and meeting new customers face to face. And so I just happened to be next door at another customer, and I’m like, “I know I’ve been here.” So, I stopped in and got to talk to the quality manager there. And we got to talk, and I handed him my business card. He goes, “I’m not the right person for you to talk to, but this other individual is.” And I said, “That’s great. Can I make an introduction?” Unfortunately, he was busy at the time.

So, months went on. I would email or call or just stop back in if I was in the area. And it just kept going, and they didn’t have a particular need, and they kept telling me, “Hey, we’ll keep you in mind. Keep you in mind.” Well, Monday they had a need, and we’re going to start putting our first trailers in this week. So excited for this opportunity.

Mark Mann: Fantastic. So, building that relationship and just staying in touch, that’s the key, man.

Brian Bladen: Really is.

Mark Mann: So, how much connection do you guys have with the Port of Detroit?

Brian Bladen: I don’t typically deal directly with the Port of Detroit, but I have certain carriers that we utilize here that kind of keep me in the loop. So we have, I call them importers, that transfer containers from the port to warehousing about 20 to 30 miles away. And so they kind of keep me in touch with the Port of Detroit. That way I know what’s going on, and the importers are the ones that are really the trailers from us as well. So it helps to have that relationship. Plus it also gives us more access to other customers that import at the port as well.

Mark Mann: Have you ever gotten a call from one of those importers whose hair was on fire, who had containers backed up there at the port or at the border with nowhere to go?

Brian Bladen: It wasn’t at the border or at the port. It was actually at their locations. They had gotten them from there, but they had nowhere to put it in their overflow warehouses. And so it was back when the tariff talk was starting to really ramp up and they were bringing a lot of things in. So we put in 20, 30 trailers, and you had 24 hours to get them the trailers so they could get them offloaded. And so, yeah, not directly at the port, but at their location, for sure.

[20:48] Winter, Safety And The Dock

Mark Mann: Yeah. So, Michigan winters are notoriously hard on logistics. They just are. When I talk to the guys up in Canada, that’s what they mention, is the tough winters. How does the weatherproof nature of your trailers provide a layer of resilience that a temporary, you know, tent or off-site overflow warehouse can’t match?

Brian Bladen: So the tent option, we actually have an automotive supplier that we helped solve that issue with. They thought it was going to be a great idea. Well, what they ran into is we have these wonderful creatures that run around on the ground, and so they like to get in any nook and cranny they can inside the tent. While our trailers are up off the ground on wheels, and you say here, you have a safe, dark trailer that they’re into, the product’s dry. You don’t have to worry about critters getting in there. You have easy access to put it right back in the dock. People don’t have to go out with forklifts in inclement weather. It just really does take the safety aspect and makes it so much better for the company, because they don’t have to run their forklift outside to grab the material and pull it back in as well.

Then on the other side of things, off-site warehousing. I think Canada needs a little bit worse weather than we do here, but we’ve seen a significant amount of snow, especially this year. It’s been horrible. So getting to and from a warehouse is a challenge, especially if it’s quite a distance away, versus being on site. So then you have to wait for that trailer to get to yours. And then you’re running into the other issue of, like we said earlier, shutting down your lines or your customers’ lines as well, because you can’t get the product built into them in a timely manner because of the weather.

Mark Mann: Yeah. You know, I’ve heard some of your colleagues talk about clean, dark, dry and safe, right? Or clean, safe, dark and dry.

Brian Bladen: So that is a definite Warehouse on Wheels tagline. That’s great.

Mark Mann: Tell me about a time where maybe you were talking to a warehouse supervisor and they told you that, “Brian, man, your trailers don’t just help us store goods and get ahead of inventory, but they actually make the entire yard safer and more organized.” Because safety first, safety always, right?

Brian Bladen: Yes, sir. So, I got a perfect example: a customer of mine out of Wixom, Michigan. They had a whole bunch of racks. They’re a warehouse for— so they destroyed the racks for automotive. So, they’re a recycler of the metals. But the fire marshal was kind of onto them for how much is outside of their facility. So, we walked around with the safety guy, and he’s just going through the whole how, you know, we could use storage trailers. We didn’t give him a lot. We only gave him five, but it made his yard look so much better, and it allowed them to get those racks out of the way.

So, we were able to get it off their yard so they didn’t see it, number one, but it also allowed them to get out of the weather, and then it allowed them not to have to go outside with forklifts and things again and bring it in and take care of it. That’s when I realized it really is more than just a dry box sitting in someone’s yard. We’re actually helping companies create more space, whether it be outside the facility or inside the facility. So it takes away their congestion and makes it into a safer environment for their whole team.

Mark Mann: Yeah. The life of those guys is fighting the dock. It’s got to be a major source of stress. So how does your drop lot service in Detroit specifically alleviate the pressure on, like you said, forklift drivers during peak inbound hours?

Brian Bladen: Well, we all know that time is money, right? And if they’re having to fight congestion anywhere on their docks, it’s taking them twice as long to either load a trailer, unload a trailer, take product to a machine that needs to be running it. So, what we offer is the solution to get rid of that congestion on their docks and move it to either their yard, or even bring it to our yard as well, to alleviate, maybe they don’t have enough yard space at their facility. So, it allows us to have it on our yard, and then we can get it back to them in a timely manner. But it really, time is money to these guys, and like we always say, safety first, safety always.

Mark Mann: It’s a safety issue as well.

Brian Bladen: For them too. So, safety first, and then it’s a timesaver for money, because they’re not fighting— well, they’re not even fighting going around each other to wait to get to the product. So, it makes it really nice and convenient.

[25:44] Hidden Costs And A Playbook

Mark Mann: Yeah, that’s a great segue. Let’s stick with that topic of time and money. I want you to put on your CFO hat for just a second, right?

Brian Bladen: Oh, boy. And Christian.

Mark Mann: Yeah. Think about, you know, beyond the rent per square foot, which, like you said, is averaging around 7.50 in Detroit, right? What are the hidden costs of a traditional lease, like taxes, maintenance, utilities, that you help customers avoid?

Brian Bladen: Well, I mean, a lot of it too is you have to have personnel, right, to man that warehouse space. So then you have their benefits that go with that. You have the insurance, you have paying the salary of that individual to run the warehouse. Then, like you said, you have the taxes and utilities, but then you have the upkeep with the maintenance on the building, which is your responsibility. Then you have to bring in racks, and usually that costs you money, to store the product onto, and then you have to buy forklifts. I mean, there’s a huge amount of cost that goes into that warehouse outside of the $7.50 a square foot.

Mark Mann: Yeah, absolutely. So, let’s give our Michigan listeners a playbook. I’m sure there are folks listening out there in your area that want to get to know you and want to get to know how you can help them. So, if a warehouse manager, like you mentioned, Livonia, right, or Auburn Hills, if they’re out of space today, what are the three things they should audit in their current yard before they even call you for equipment?

Brian Bladen: Well, they need to audit inside their facility, make sure they are utilizing the space inside correctly. Then they need to look outside and make sure they have enough space for extra storage on the facility. And if not, then they need to really look at maybe off-site storage, such as our yard, that we can utilize with our trailers. And then, how much extra equipment are they really going to need, and really dive into what the product is they’re going to put on this, so that we can know how many trailers to bring them. But I often—

Mark Mann: Yes, you do. Great.

So, looking at your most successful customers there, what is the one habit they all share when it comes to managing their mobile fleet? Is it strategy? Is it having a plan?

Brian Bladen: It’s always having a plan. You have to always have a plan, and you have to be thinking ahead as well for your mobile fleet. You have to be able to see what the forecast is. You have to plan for the unknown, as I like to call it, because there’s a lot of unknowns in our industry, and they pop up at a moment’s notice. So you have to be able to plan for the unknown and have a plan A, B and C.

[28:37] Shredded Tires And 75 Trailers

Mark Mann: Yeah. There’s a big difference between uncertainty and ambiguity, right? One of the things I got sick of hearing during the COVID pandemic, you mentioned the pandemic, was uncertainty. Well, with or without the pandemic, there’s always uncertainty, right? Especially in this industry. So, a lot of your customers, you were saying, are retail and industrial suppliers. But as you know, those 450 square foot boxes can be used for almost anything. I talked to Rosie, one of your colleagues in Phoenix, and she talked about putting carnival displays and footie pajamas, adult-size footie pajamas, in the trailers. What is the most unusual use case for our trailers that you have seen up there in Detroit?

Brian Bladen: I don’t have anything that crazy. That’s pretty funny. I don’t know if I can top that one. The craziest thing I have: I have a recycler of tires, and they take and shred tires, and they used to use it for mulch around houses and stuff, and they since they’ll do that. Well, so now they have 10 to 12 trailers just loaded with these little bitty mulched-up pieces that are just sitting in there, and it’s going to be stored there for years with nowhere to put it now. So they’re trying to figure out what to do with it. But yeah, that’s the craziest thing I have going on here. Most of my stuff, even if it’s retail, it’s just like clothing and things like that.

Mark Mann: Yeah. So I’ve heard stories from your colleagues who’ve told me that they have saved customers millions of dollars a year just by offering a couple hundred dry vans for storage instead of, you know, leasing warehouse space, like we’ve talked about. What’s your go-to story? What comes to mind when you think of the biggest problem-solving or cost-saving story up there in Detroit?

Brian Bladen: The biggest one that comes to my mind is, I had a customer that their need happened quickly, and they were moving into a bigger facility, but they didn’t want to rent another facility or lease another facility, because I think it was going to be a two-year lease, and they had to do it quickly, and they were terrified it was going to cost them thousands of— million, close to a million dollars probably, in the short time that they needed. We were able to provide them with, it wasn’t a lot, it was only 75 trailers, but we were able to provide them that overflow of 75 trailers to get them through their need at the time. And so it saved them so much money that they were so happy. They actually wrote a thank-you letter to me. It really touched my heart.

So, being able to know what your customers are going to need, and having that relationship, like we talked about, to be able to be blunt with them and say, “Guys, this is what we can offer you.” I mean, and they needed cartage trailers, because those trailers were going to have to go from that facility to the new facility, but it was going to sit for a long time at the other facility before they could move it over. So offering that solution that is going to save them, even was going up to $3.75 a square foot, saved them $4 a square foot, and they were still about it.

Mark Mann: Yeah. It almost makes you want to have a whiteboard, right, where you can write 7.50 times 75, or, you know, $3, or, you know, times— yeah, so times 450. Yeah. You almost need a whiteboard to go up there and show them exactly, you know, what the impact is.

[32:18] Signature Round

Mark Mann: All right, so it’s time for the signature round. Going to get a little personal here. All right, so Detroit is a city with a lot of soul, a lot of grit. What is the moment you realized that your work wasn’t just about renting boxes, but about keeping the literal wheels on America’s economy turning?

Brian Bladen: So, like I said, I like to call it my 12th season of renting trailers up here. I’m in my 11th season up here, but 12th season in this industry. And so, it really hit me in 2018, prior to COVID and all that, when we were helping a large automotive company move from older equipment to newer equipment. And I realized that our job was more than just putting dry vans into— because they needed our help drastically. They didn’t have the equipment. They were in a bottleneck, because we actually helped create the bottleneck for them, because of the switch out of newer equipment. But that’s when I realized we offered a solution, no matter what, that they have to keep going, and we have to be there to help.

So we absolutely put trailers into them just to keep ’em rolling, and it was kind of rest assured for me to know that, whether it’s automotive or retail, or even, unfortunately, natural disasters happen, we can be there to help everyone.

Mark Mann: Yeah. So it makes you wake up and say, “I’m a trailer guy. I’m doing this. This is great.” Right. So when you leave the yard there in Flat Rock and head home, how do you unplug from that high-velocity world of Detroit logistics so you can show up for your team the next morning? What are your hobbies? What’s your downtime look like?

Brian Bladen: So on my drive home, you guys are going to laugh at me, because I’m talking a lot throughout the day, but I’m from Indianapolis originally. So, with my family being in Indianapolis, I like to call my mom, my dad, my brothers, my sisters, and just check in on them and see how things are going. Now, my hobbies, that’s a different story. You put me on the boat fishing, and I’m a happy man. That’s my best way of unwinding. Fishing and hunting, it’s my best way. And watching my kids do sports. I really love watching my children do sports.

Mark Mann: Excellent. You need to come down here to Louisville with Chris Martin. He’s a fisherman. We talked about it.

Brian Bladen: We’ve been trying— I’m trying to get him up here, because there’s this big lake called Lake St. Clair up here that everyone loves to fish for smallmouth. I’m trying to get him up here. So, we’ll work out a happy medium somewhere.

Mark Mann: Yeah, absolutely. So, think about the best mentor you’ve ever had, Brian. What is the one thing they said to you that you now find yourself repeating to your team there in Detroit?

Brian Bladen: Well, you know how one of the biggest things here at Warehouse on Wheels is extreme ownership. I started meeting and preached to that by my mentor years ago when I was in the warehousing industry, even in Indianapolis. And the one thing that he kept telling me: do it to the best of your ability, but control what you can control, and always be there to help whenever the need is there. That has stuck with me, and I’ve tried to share that with my team over the last 15 years or so, just to be like: control what you control, but what you do control, do it to the best of your ability.

Mark Mann: Absolutely. That kind of closes our circle on the whole conversation about uncertainty, right? Because there’s a lot of uncertain things that happen that we don’t have control over, but if we’re controlling those things we can control, we’re going to be successful.

[36:15] Myths And Next Steps

Mark Mann: So, two more questions. This has been a really enlightening look at the Wolverine State. I’ve got two more questions for you. Got a lot of folks listening up there in Michigan and the surrounding areas. So, what is one myth about storage trailers in Detroit that you hope we can retire after today’s conversation?

Brian Bladen: The one big myth is storage trailers, we can’t use them for anything. Well, we can show you how it can be such a great utilization for your organization. And the other myth, there’s two for me, is the 10-year-or-newer rule up here in Michigan. We can help off-site, if that’s a rule for you guys, for the 10-year-or-newer, but we can take that trailer and make it however you need it to be at your organization.

Mark Mann: Yeah, those are great. Awesome. So, for anyone listening who is feeling the squeeze in the Detroit or surrounding market, what’s the one thing they should do this week?

Brian Bladen: Give me a call. Let me come out. Let me walk your facility with you. Let me walk beside you and see what your actual need is. Let’s come up with a plan. Let’s put some trailers in to help you, so you’re not going through that squeeze, because that pressure is not fun.

Mark Mann: Absolutely. And folks can find you at www.warehouseonwheels.com. Is that right?

Brian Bladen: Yes, sir.

Mark Mann: All right, Brian Bladen, General Manager at PMF Trailer Rentals in Detroit. Thanks for showing us the Wow Factor in Michigan. Appreciate it.

Brian Bladen: Thank you for having me.

Mark Mann: I’m Dr. Mark Mann, and we will see you on the next episode of The Wow Factor.