I’m Dale Lawrence, and this is my family’s company
I was born and raised here in the Eastern Panhandle, and I’ve spent my whole life within a short drive of the Berkeley County courthouse. Before Lawrence & Family Movers, I ran a small hauling and warehouse operation around Martinsburg — loading trailers, stacking pallets, hauling for folks who needed an honest hand and a strong back. I learned the unglamorous part of this trade first: how to protect a hardwood floor, how to read a tight stairwell, and how to give somebody a number they could actually count on.
In 2009 my two sons and I started this company on one rule, and we’ve never broken it: lock the flat price in writing before the truck rolls. No hourly meter running while you sweat the clock, no surprise line items when the gate drops. You see the number, you sign it, and that’s the number — that’s how my dad did business, and it’s how we do ours.
Genuinely family-run — not a name on a truck
When I say family, I mean it the boring, literal way. My son Travis leads a crew and handles the piano and specialty work. My son Cole runs our long-haul jobs down I-81. My wife Brenda handles the office — your scheduling, the certificates of insurance, the billing. Wade Coffman runs the daily truck board for us, and Hector Maldonado has been wrangling farmhouse stairs and gravel-lane carries with us for years. We’re a crew of twelve movers, sixteen of us all told, and the people who quote your move are the people who show up to do it.
Our own trucks, our own W-2 crew
We own our trucks and we employ our movers — they’re W-2, background-checked, and they wear our uniform. We don’t hand your move off to a stranger, and we don’t pull guys off a street corner the morning of. The same crew that loads you in Spring Mills is the crew that unloads you wherever you’re headed.
We’re a licensed, insured West Virginia family moving company. We hold WV moving authority, and we carry US DOT and MC authority for the interstate runs — folks cashing out of Northern Virginia, the DC suburbs and Baltimore for cheaper land and a slower pace out here in the Panhandle. Whether it’s a Victorian in historic downtown Martinsburg, a farmhouse on acreage in Gerrardstown, or a Shepherd University rental, we treat the job like it’s our own family moving in.
Why folks out here call us
- A flat rate written and signed before we load — no hourly surprises
- Our own trucks and our own uniformed, background-checked movers
- Two of my sons run crews — you’re dealing with the family the whole way
- We know Panhandle gravel lanes, steep drives, ice, mud and long country carries
- WV moving authority plus US DOT and MC authority for the long hauls