Management Bios
Relocation.com is the leading online consumer resource for moving services. The company's mission is to help make the moving process easier, less challenging and more cost effective before, during and after the move. Founded in 2000 as VanLines.com, company founder Sharon (Ron) Asher later purchased Relocation.com, which now serves as the umbrella for the company's Web properties.
With more than 40 million Americans moving each year, Relocation.com helps connect these consumers with pre-screened, licensed professionals that can best service their needs for local, national or international moves. Relocation.com helps consumers gain confidence in their moving process by only partnering with qualified and licensed companies that have proven quality standards for professionalism and customer service. Once the decision to move has been made, consumers are faced with many decisions and a daunting task list. This includes establishing new routines and forming new buying habits, which ultimately leads them to consider new products and services. Relocation.com offers comprehensive information, tools and resources to help consumers compare, connect and learn about products and services from hundreds of relevant providers.
Working with many leading moving and storage companies, Relocation.com connects consumers with quality, professional companies who can service their upcoming move. Relocation.com works to make sure consumers are educated about the moving process through providing access to free moving quotes and offering essential information on how to have the smoothest, least stressful moving experience possible.
By delivering a high volume of ready-to-purchase consumers to service professionals, Relocation.com has become one of the most efficient sales and marketing channels for leading moving, auto transport and storage companies across the U.S. With 80 percent of consumers using the Internet as their first place to search for moving information*, Relocation.com is a leader in accelerating the dramatic change in how consumers connect with local businesses and service professionals through the power of the Internet.
Management Biographies
Ron Asher
Chairman and Founder
As Relocation.com's Founder and Chairman,
Sharon (Ron) started off on a very different path before he found success in the relocation industry. In 1993 - after Asher completed his service in the Israeli army - he came to New York on vacation. Asher, however, never did return home and thanks his vision; his life has never been the same.
Soon after he arrived in New York, Asher started working for a relocation company. Through this position he learned about the industry and decided that rather than work intensively for someone else he wanted to do so for himself, so he started his own company. As the owner of his relocation company in Westchester, New York, Asher saw something bigger (and untapped) within the relocation industry. Always a visionary, Asher spent a lot of time thinking about how to promote his business and explain to his consumers how his company was special. In 1998, he started learning more about a relatively new phenomenon (the Internet) and began to realize that it was not only a powerful medium, but one that could greatly help his business. He purchased the domain name www.VanLines.com in 2000, and spent the next several years aggressively expanding the website. He held the role of salesman, customer service rep, telemarketer, IT, etc - capturing ancillary industry categories and developing an innovative search engine optimization strategy to generate and cultivate a large consumer audience, valuable leads and advertisers.
As he built the business and the company's brand, he was able to focus on building new websites in related categories, including USRealEstate.com, InternationalMovers.com, NationalMortgage.com, CarMovers.com, TopMovingCompanies.com, shop4boxes.com, shop4contractors.com, UStorage.com and USInsurance.com. Asher understood how moving companies could deliver a high level of service to consumers, and he sought to bring this service quality to consumers across the Internet.
Asher later acquired Relocation.com and from his initial concept and vision turned the Website into the Internet's largest relocation marketplace – connecting consumers who are moving to quality moving and storage professionals. Relocation.com continues to expand –offering both consumers and movers informative articles, online calculators and numerous tools and resources to make moving easier and less stressful. With Asher's online marketing creativity and technological expertise, Relocation.com has reached a high level of visibility while delivering unique products, services and value to the relocation industry.
Asher has subsequently attracted a deep and experienced management team to help take Relocation.com to its next level of growth and success. The result of these efforts is the most successful network of relocation-related vertical Websites in existence today that Asher is still deeply involved in as he continues to develop the company's strategy and expand its vision.
Although a huge part of his life, Asher also enjoys activities outside of the Internet. He is a certified Gemologist and he loves playing the drums.
Bill Sheehan
Chief Operating Officer
Bill Sheehan oversees multiple departments at Relocation.com as chief operating officer, including interactive technology, product
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management, account management,
finance and human resources. He leads Relocation.com's continuing efforts to identify
and implement advanced tools and streamlined procedures so that the company's customers
can grow their businesses quickly and efficiently. In addition, Sheehan manages
all customer service operations, supervising a team of account managers and ensuring
quality customer relations and retention.
Prior to Relocation.com, Sheehan spent seven years at Kraft Foods, holding senior management positions in various areas including operations, quality assurance, research and development, and human resources for brands including Oreo, Chips Ahoy, Planters, Snackwells and Oscar Mayer. He also worked on new product launches for brands such as Life Savers and Ritz. Most recently, he was a senior director in the Nabisco division, responsible for food service operations worldwide.
Before Kraft, Sheehan was a production manager at Dawn Farm Foods, one of Ireland's largest privately owned agri-businesses. There, Sheehan was responsible for managing the production facility's day-to-day operations, and was instrumental in helping the company acquire ISO 9000 standards accreditation for quality management.
Sheehan earned a bachelor's degree in microbiology and a master's degree in quality assurance at National University of Ireland, Galway.
Sheehan has moved almost 20 times in his lifetime - including one life-changing move in 1998, where he packed all his belongings into two suitcases and left his native Ireland to pursue new opportunities in the United States.
Ross A. Mehlman
IT Director
As technical team leader, Ross Mehlman is the chief technology architect for Relocation.com's
front- and back-end web and database
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applications. Mehlman's efforts are focused on providing Relocation.com customers with state-of-the-art data delivery, campaign management and reporting tools. Mehlman also works closely to ensure that Relocation.com's consumer facing applications deliver information, functionality and services that meet the highest current Internet standards.
An expert in Microsoft technologies, .Net applications, database management and numerous programming languages, Mehlman leverages this expertise to continue to expand Relocation.com's technology platform to be scalable, flexible and feature-rich to support current and future business growth.
Before Relocation.com, Mehlman served as a technology consultant at Murdock Mendelsohn Co. in Nashville, TN. He also worked as a senior application developer at JBHanauer & Co and as a web developer at SheTV, a Japanese television channel. He also worked as a web developer at Datanomics, working with their customer, Lucent Technologies.
After earning a bachelor's degree in Economics from Kenyon College in Ohio, Mehlman pursued a graduate degree in sports management at the University of Tennessee. His first big move after graduate school was to the Detroit area to work for the Detroit Tigers baseball team.
Mehlman claims to know a bit about moving due to a nomadic lifestyle in his early 20's. At one point he had lived in four states over a three year period. "I've had both good moves and bad," says Mehlman. "I understand the importance of simplifying the process."
