Nine years dispatching freight for a regional trucking outfit, then launched his own operation in 2013 built around a written schedule. Still the one sequencing the morning runs.
United Movers Transportation
Military-precision TACOMA, WA movers, fully licensed and insured, running exact-window jobs since 2013
About United Movers Transportation — Tacoma, WA
Port-city precision movers working Tacoma, WA and all of Pierce County
DISCLAIMER: When I send this form I confirm I am 18 or older and agree to let United Movers Transportation reach me by phone, text, or email about the move details I provided. Agreeing to this is not a commitment to book with us.
★
5/5 from 24 reviews
13+
Years taking care of Tacoma families
✓
No-cost estimate — ever
How it started
How a Port of Tacoma dispatch habit turned into a moving company
I am Derek Munro. I grew up in the Northeast Tacoma docks neighborhood, in a family that had worked the Port for two generations, and before United Movers Transportation I spent nine years dispatching freight for a regional trucking outfit. Moving a household is really the same problem as routing a freight manifest on a deadline: map it out, walk the crew through it, and be there when you told the customer you would. That habit is the whole operation here, and it is the reason most of our new business still comes from a neighbor telling a neighbor.
Before my name was on the truck, I spent a year on the road driving and supervising for a national carrier. The equipment was fine and the paycheck was steady, but I kept running into the same handful of problems: quotes that grew between the phone call and the final bill, a freight-elevator reservation nobody had actually confirmed, a fill-in weekend crew rolling up two hours late to somebody’s closing. I started keeping a mental list of everything I would do differently. United Movers Transportation is that list, flipped around and turned into an actual plan.
We opened in 2013 around a short list of rules I still will not bend for a flashier ad. The dollar figure goes in writing before anyone touches a box. Whoever shows up on your job is a United Movers Transportation employee we hired and trained, not a gig-app crew put together the night before. If your closing date and your move date stop matching up, we have climate-controlled storage to hold your things instead of leaving them on a truck in a parking lot. And when you call, an actual person answers — usually me, or Priya Anand in the office on the days I am out with the trucks.
Years in, I am still the one laying out the day’s route before sunup, factoring I-5 and Narrows Bridge traffic into the schedule so trucks are clear of downtown before rush hour builds. Moving day already comes with enough uncertainty on its own. Our job is to be the predictable part: the price you agreed to, the same crew you were told about, and a truck at your curb inside the window we promised.
The record so far
The Pierce County track record, in four quick figures
Since 2013
13 years of moves run on a written schedule across Pierce County
4,000+ moves
from downtown Tacoma studio walk-ups to Gig Harbor homes with a driveway
No day-labor, ever
each mover is a background-checked employee on our payroll, never day labor
5★ rating
across 24 checked reviews from South Puget Sound customers
What does not change
Four rules that do not bend, job to job
What we quote is what you pay
You get one all-in number on paper, and that is the number you pay. Signing in at a downtown building, a long haul from a reserved freight elevator, the toll for a run out to Gig Harbor — it is all factored in ahead of time. There is no clipboard math once the truck pulls up to your curb.
No subcontracted trucks, ever
We own the trucks and we employ everyone riding in them. Your move never gets passed off to an outside contractor, and we do not scramble to find warm bodies the morning of. Whoever Tomas schedules for your job is the same person who steps out of that cab.
The one-of-a-kind pieces get the patient hand
A glass-front cabinet, a record collection, a marble-top console — the pieces that cannot be replaced get handled deliberately, padded and wrapped right where they start, never parked in a hot truck while we knock out another stop. Hardwood gets covered, doorframes get protected, and none of it needs to be requested. It is simply how this crew does the work.
A real downtown Tacoma address
Our office is right on Pacific Ave in downtown Tacoma — stop by any time. We are fully licensed and insured, we hold DOT and MC authority for anything that crosses into another state, and we run our own climate-controlled storage on site. Before the crew even loads a dolly, Priya has typically already cleared your building’s insurance certificate and reserved the freight elevator on the other end.
Who actually shows up
The crew that actually shows up at your door
Dial us and a Tacoma desk answers, not a routing center three states over. Everyone below has a hand in your the South Puget Sound job — quoting it, scheduling it, hauling it — whether it lands on a quiet Tuesday or the busiest Saturday of the month. Most have stuck with United Movers Transportation for years.
builds the flat-rate quote from your inventory and confirms building access before crew day
routes crews around I-5 and Highway 16 traffic and keeps every truck on the promised window
runs the piano and gun-safe jobs across Tacoma and the Gig Harbor bridge crossing
specializes in apartment turnovers and elevator-window coordination in downtown high-rises
Verify us first
Paperwork you can check before you book a thing
We run this operation ourselves — our own trucks, our own payroll crew, no phone-number auction to third-party bidders. Check the paperwork below, then book directly with us:
- Licensed & fully insured — Washington requires a household-goods carrier permit, and every local Pierce County job runs under that permit plus our insurance.
- DOT & MC authority on record — this is what lets us legally carry your household across a state line, whether that is a run to Oregon, Idaho, California, or further out.
- $1M in cargo coverage — the policy rides with your shipment door to door, covering everything from the first item off the dolly to the last one set down inside your new place.
- Never left the neighborhood — run out of our downtown Tacoma office, working all of Pierce County straight through every season since 2013.
What South Puget Sound movers read before they pick a moving crew
Our service map
Towns and neighborhoods our trucks work
There is a United Movers Transportation truck somewhere on I-5 most days of the week. Pick a town below for the local details, or just text us your starting ZIP and where you are headed — a written flat rate lands back in your phone the same day.
See why Tacoma neighbors keep handing Derek the keys.
Send a request and get a written flat rate locked to the date you have circled. One number, no in-person walkthrough required, nothing extra once the truck shows up.
Get my number →One flat rate, zero curbside surprises