Roy Moss can inspire us to make a difference.
We all wish we could do more—give more of our time to philanthropic causes, donate more money to the community organizations we believe in, and dedicate more of ourselves to our families, our children and our coworkers. And yet, something always seems to get in the way. We need extra money to save for that next big purchase, we’re already too strapped for time to have any to give and career demands often result in us putting our family and friends’ needs in a secondary position.
And yet, despite all this, there are some people who seem to have it “all figured out,” who may even have additional life challenges, and yet still seem to find the time, money and resources to give of themselves to others. Roy Moss is such an individual.
Some readers may know Moss as a business leader who grew his Petaluma-based company, Sequoia Logistics (which markets the services of global transportation company NYK Group), to up to nearly $6 million in revenues in eight short years. Others may know him as the parent who volunteers to coach their children’s teams and involve himself with PTA car washes and bake sales. Still others will know Roy from community service work and for his reputation of being someone who can be relied upon to contribute some time or at least make a donation. All who know him know an individual who puts his time and money where his mouth is, and who follows through with his commitments and promises.
A hard start
Moss’ adult life got off to a difficult start when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease in his senior year of high school. He was unable to graduate with his class because of the time spent getting treatment. “I went through chemotherapy and radiation in my senior year. Oddly enough, that’s how I ended up in transportation,” explains Moss. “My sister was an operations manager in Petaluma for NYK, and she wanted me to come and help them move into a new office and answer phones for a couple weeks—it turned into two years.”
After working in operations for the NYK Group in the 1980s, Moss worked for an NYK competitor for about a year. After stints at ARA and McKesson, Roy went to work for a small regional trucking company in the East Bay. When, in 1993, he started sending non-trucking transportation leads to a contact he’d kept at NYK, he was encouraged to sell all transportation services as an independent contractor. He did just that for about six years before hiring his own personnel in 1999 and officially starting Sequoia Logistics. Today, the company provides the convenience of a single point of contact for all of its customers’ rail, highway, LTL (less than a truckload), air, ocean and warehousing needs.
As Sequoia Logistics started taking off, so did Moss’ philanthropic efforts. “It all started about seven or eight years ago before we had our first child,” remembers Moss. “We were banking at Redwood Credit Union, and they had one of those giving trees. We had some extra money and we didn’t have any kids, so I went in and picked one name. The next time I went in, there were still more names, so I picked a couple more. That’s how the whole thing started.”
What started as a simple gesture around the Christmas holidays quickly turned into an ever-growing list of charitable contributions to more than 20 local, national and international nonprofit organizations including Medical Exchange International, the American Cancer Society, the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, the Boys and Girls Clubs, Wounded Warrior, UNICEF, the American Red Cross, St. Jude’s, MS 150 Bike Tour and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
A gift of time
While Moss does not, in his own words, “play favorites” with charities, he is more involved (contributing more time in addition to writing a check) with some organizations than others. In 2005 and 2006, Moss and his wife Tija (who also acted as chairperson) were both the top individual donor and top fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life in Rohnert Park.
Moss’ personal connection to this organization goes beyond his own survival of Hodgkin’s disease as a young adult, because now the cause has become all too personal again. In March 2006, Moss was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and spent much of the year undergoing chemotherapy. Despite having to wear a chemo pump through a port in his chest three days every other week for months, Moss, coach of his children’s soccer, baseball and basketball teams, missed only three games.
“I just showed up,” says Moss, when asked how he maintained the energy to keep coaching through this difficult period. “I had some good friends who were my assistant coaches, and there were only a few days when I was just too tired to get out.”
A personal connection also led him to be a big supporter of Medical Exchange International (MEI), a nonprofit dedicated to providing appropriate tools, knowledge, and educational support to health care professionals in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and various islands of the Malay Archipelago). When Moss’ daughter was born in 2003, his wife Tija suffered from a pulmonary embolism, which was diagnosed by Dr. John Freedman, director of anesthesiology at Kaiser. Because Dr. Freedman made a special visit during time off to attend to Tija and make the lifesaving diagnosis, the Mosses thanked him with a donation to MEI, the charity he had founded in 1999. This initial donation has turned into an ongoing involvement, including Moss building a website for the organization and helping with shipments of medical supplies through Sequoia Logistics.
Selfless…or selfish?
The list of organizations Moss contributes to is lengthy. Some started through personal associations and others simply asked for help from the right person at the right time. Moss started getting involved with the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation because of a young 4-year-old girl with diabetes, the classmate of his daughter; as well as his 28-year-old niece, who suffers from juvenile diabetes and is currently on a donor list for a kidney and a pancreas. He and his wife now donate money, participate in fund-raising walks and car washes and sponsor holes at golf tournaments for the organization. Likewise, his commitment to coaching youth soccer, baseball and basketball started when he recognized the need for his own son’s and daughter’s teams.
“There’s no real criteria,” Moss says, when asked how he decides what organizations to support. “[Tija and I aren’t] opposed to hearing from any nonprofit, especially local organizations.”
All this philanthropy led to Moss winning, in 2006, NYK Group’s inaugural citizenship award, designed to show appreciation for employees who are committed to making a difference in the lives of others. Amazingly, given the thousands of NYK employees to choose from, Moss won the award despite merely acting as an agent for the firm.
Asked why he gives so much of his time, money and energy, Moss offers a very “selfish” answer: “It makes me feel good,” he says. “I was born and raised in a modest household, and I earn a very comfortable living. There’s more than enough for us to live comfortably.
“I guess part of it is guilt. I’m not ashamed, but once in a while I say to myself, ‘Gee, I have it so great!’ And when you have things like a great family, a loving wife, beautiful kids and a positive attitude, what else really matters?”
In addition to feelings of self-satisfaction, Moss also says he wants to teach his children the same values and ethics with which he was raised. For this reason, the Moss children are often seen at fund-raising and community events along with their parents. Moss says sharing these experiences with his children has helped forge close bonds and strengthened their family unit.
“I’d like my kids to pick up the habit [of volunteering for or contributing to community and nonprofit organizations] and for that to be an integral part of their lives,” says Moss. “When we do a car wash, the kids are scrubbing cars; they do the juvenile diabetes walk and the relay walk; when there are functions or bake sales, they go. And it’s not like they’re forced—they want to go. We teach them about what the organizations stand for. They happen to know someone their age who has juvenile diabetes, so they want to know what it’s about. I have cancer, so they want to know everything there is to know about cancer.”
Take it to work
Concurrent with spending time with needy local organizations and his family, Moss also manages to run a three-person, multimillion dollar company (it’s projected to reach $6.7 million in 2007). Combined with the NYK Group’s top salesperson, with whom Sequoia Logistics shares an office, this North Bay branch is responsible for producing $38 million per year in revenues. So how does Moss fit it all in? According to him, part of the secret is hiring good people, training them well and then letting them take responsibility for their work.
“I’m the boss I would want to have,” explains Moss. “I like to think that I pay an above-average wage. But I don’t have to do a whole heck of a lot. They do most of the work for me.”
Long breaks, paid vacations, permitting employees to bring their dogs to work and allowing for flexible schedules are just some of the perks Moss feels make his employees loyal and dependable. One of his employees, for example, a single mother of two, leaves work early on a regular basis to pick up her children from school; she also takes off as necessary for sick days, field trips and the like. But in return for Moss’ flexibility, she often works from home, taking calls late into the night and early in the morning. This employee has been with the company almost since its inception and, in Moss’ words, makes him feel he could comfortably leave for months and know that everything would be fine. “She really is an amazing woman,” he says.
“Ultimately, I’d like to see more people—managers and owners of businesses—doing similar things [volunteering for and contributing to community organizations],” says Moss. “I think it’s easy to do, but I also think selling [like he does daily for Sequoia Logistics] is easy and some people don’t. So a lot of the things that come easy to me, like finding time or making time, other people can’t do…but anybody can write a check.”
