BRIG SORBER:
 
Brig Sorber




 
 
 
 
 
President and CEO of Two Men and a Truck International in Lansing. With younger brother Jon Sorber, he started the business in the early 1980s to earn spending money. When the pair went to college, their mother took over the company and franchised it. Upon graduation, Sorber worked as an insurance agent in the Upper Peninsula and operated a Two Men and a Truck franchise. He sold the franchise and came back to Lansing to restructure the company, serving as a field consultant and leading franchise development. Under his leadership, the company continues to grow, experiencing record revenue in 2010 and 2011. Two Men and a Truck was named a Top 50 franchise by Franchise Business Review and is ranked No. 48 among large franchise systems. This is the sixth year the company has made the Top 50. The firm has been listed by Entrepreneur magazine more than 15 times as a Top 500 Franchise. Sorber is the past president of the Okemos Baseball Softball Club and a member of the Knights of Columbus. He is active in the Detroit chapter of the Young Presidents' Organization and a local group of Lansing CEOs. He is also a director of the Business Leaders for Michigan, a nonprofit, executive organization. Sorber earned the Certified Franchise Executive designation, recognized as a standard of excellence in the franchise industry. He was awarded the 2008 Alumni Award by the Okemos Education Foundation and received the 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award from Northern Michigan University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in geography with an emphasis on urban planning and land use regulation.


WHERE BORN: “Lansing.”

MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS: “My wife, Fran, and my Grandpa Eberly have been huge influences on my life in terms of helping me keep my priorities in the right places and focusing on what matters most – my family at home, my family at work, and my faith.”

LAST BOOK READ: “Max Lucado's God's Story, Your Story.”

WORDS THAT DESCRIBE ME: “Funny, hair-trigger, dependable.”

WHERE MY FIELD/INDUSTRY IS HEADED: “The moving industry had been down or flat for the past several years due in part to the struggling real estate industry to which we are closely tied. We were fortunate to see this coming early on and we made drastic changes to structure our team optimally for the downturn and to prepare for the opportunities on the other side. We've moved from a decentralized system to a focus on emerging technology and cloud innovations that put all 220-plus franchisers and their staffs in lock step with our home office team members. We live in a 24/7 world and we reorganized our operations to succeed in this new era. We're able to react more quickly to our customers' needs. A large majority of our franchisees saw double-digit growth last year in what is still a fairly flat industry. We are among the largest moving companies in the nation today, and we're poised like never before to take this company to new heights.”

FAVORITE TECHNOLOGICAL GADGET: “Sonic toothbrush... it rocks.”

FAVORITE PLACE: “Anywhere near Michigan's Great Lakes.”

FAVORITE HOBBIES: “Marathon running, working out, and cutting and splitting firewood.”

FAVORITE FOOD: “Authentic Mexican.”

MY HIDDEN TALENT: “Using really bad analogies to make a point.”

HOW I WANT TO BE REMEMBERED: “As a follower of Christ and a man of integrity.”


Grant Thornton Website At the annual awards reception in April 2014, one Leader & Innovator from the previous 12 months will be selected as the Grant Thornton Leader & Innovator of the Year.