Larry Stallings says it’s only happened once or twice: He has found himself traveling to a store, only to realize that the store was in a different city.
But what do you expect from someone who has had to move his family four times in the past nine years?
Stallings completed yet another move about a month ago, bringing his wife and two children to settle in Keller, a suburb that lies just north of Fort Worth. He hopes this will be his last relocation.
Stallings was an employee with the Santa Fe Railroad who chose to come to Fort Worth after the company’s merger with Fort Worth-based Burlington Northern.
He was among the last of a group of about 100 Santa Fe employees who moved from Schaumburg.
Stallings considers himself a relocation veteran.
He started with Santa Fe in 1967 as a telegraph operator in Slaton. In 1972, he moved to Amarillo and stayed there for 17 years. Then came several moves, to Kansas, New Mexico, Illinois and Texas.
Stallings, now a manager of corridor operations, says he doesn’t mind moving.
“It’s the same job and the same people,” he says. “It’s just in a different room.”
But he says it’s much harder on his family. His children, now 15 and 7, must make new friends and attend different schools. It also means finding new stores at which to shop at and new doctors for health care.
The merger of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe resulted in one of the largest mass moves in corporate America, says the Carrollton office of Nelson Westerberg, a full-service corporate relocation firm.
But it was far from uncommon.
Nelson Westerberg, which handled the relocation for the railroad, says corporate relocation planners in midsize and large companies are planning many relocations in the next five years.
In a survey with Atlas Van Lines, Nelson Westerberg found that most companies are doing much more for employees who must relocate.
“We’ve noticed recently an inclination to provide such services to transferring families as assistance in finding a trailing spouse a job, increased relocation benefits, and now, assistance in the care of older adults,” says Alan Mileski, president, domestic agency service at Nelson Westerberg.
In the survey of 165 companies, 72 percent paid for their employees’ total relocation package, and 75 percent paid for all fees connected with the purchase or sale of the employees’ homes.
Moreover, 71 percent said the company’s number of relocations will increase by 2001, with nearly 63 percent saying the growth of the company necessitated the moves, Nelson Westerberg says.
Stallings says Burlington Northern Santa Fe offered a great deal of relocation help.
But nothing can help when it comes to leaving friends and family. Having a good attitude is the best remedy.
The move from the Chicago area to Texas, he says, was one of the saddest. Not only did his children lose friends, Stallings lost co-workers who chose not to relocate.
His move from Amarillo to Kansas was difficult, too. It was the first time he moved his family away from relatives.
“We spent every Christmas with my wife’s mother,” Stallings says. “We had to break that tradition. We learned to create our own traditions for our children. It changed the outlook on a lot of things.”
In moving to Fort Worth, though, Stallings has met up with people he started with three decades ago.
“Once you’re started in the railroad, it’s hard to give up,” he says.
