Gentle Giant Receives Top Small Workplace Award


Wall Street Journal Ceremony

SOMERVILLE, MA - October 1, 2007 - Gentle Giant Moving Company (http://www.gentlegiant.com), a premier residential moving and storage company headquartered in Massachusetts, has been identified in the first annual Top Small Workplaces award program by the Wall Street Journal and Winning Workplaces. The Top Small Workplaces were announced today in a special Wall Street Journal report on small businesses, which appeared online and in the newspaper.

The Wall Street Journal collaborated with not-for-profit small business consultancy Winning Workplaces (http://www.winningworkplaces.com) to identify exceptional small organizations. Through a national search they selected employers with fewer than 500 employees that foster teamwork, flexibility, high productivity and innovation while also treating their workforce with respect, providing opportunities for professional growth and advancement, and providing benefits, both traditional and nontraditional, that make the employee experience better. Gentle Giant Moving Company was selected from among 850 companies across the country that were nominated for this honor. There are fifteen Top Small Workplaces award winners in total.

President and founder Larry O'Toole commented, "Our mission as an employer is to create leaders and our philosophy is based on never taking our people for granted". O'Toole continued, "Gentle Giant attracts employees because they love our culture of excellence and the way we value teamwork, personal growth, and being recognized by your peers and by company leaders for a job well done". He added, "We set high standards, and we try to celebrate everyone's victories, big and small. I want to congratulate all of our employees for making Gentle Giant a great place to work".

Gentle Giant employee Ryan Libby, a Senior Crew Chief and Assistant Manager in the company's Providence, Rhode Island branch, said "Like many of my coworkers, I started here as a crew member and grew with the company." He continued, "Gentle Giant has helped me develop valuable skills that I can use anywhere, and I choose to stay with this company because there are always challenges and growth opportunities, and I really like the positive attitude of our workforce".

Full coverage of the Top Small Workplaces awards, including videos, a podcast, and an online slideshow can be found at http://www.wsj.com/small-business. Gentle Giant Moving Company will also be featured in an upcoming Q&A in the entrepreneur's blog on the publication's web site, available at http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet.

For video highlights of Gentle Giant's winning qualities, check out the link below!