Staff Profiles
Suzan "Irish" McClarey
As the founder of Moving Forward Specialists, Inc., Suzan is excited to combine over 30 years of sales and marketing experience, with a lifetime of caring about the needs of seniors. Most recently, Suzan served as a Church Marketing Rep for Olan Mills, where she coordinated with church volunteers to develop church pictorial directories while building rapport and trust through the entire process, with literally thousands of families across the Midwest and parts of California. This process typically lasted six to nine months for each church. For this position, she traveled through five states to show pictures to church families, assisted them in making choices they would be pleased with for years to come, and enjoyed meeting new people and building lasting relationships.
Suzan learned about the senior move management industry through Diane Bjorkman of Gentle Transitions while attending the 30th wedding anniversary party for Diane's brother and sister in law's. When Diane told Suzan about Gentle Transitions, Suzan knew that was something she would like to spend the rest of her life doing.
Suzan's commitment to helping seniors comes from her personal experiences in helping several friends and family relocate. For example, when her friend Bea was moving from her home In California to Illinois, at Bea's request, Suzan escorted her to Illinois. The pair traveled throughout the state of California to visit Bea's friends and family. Her years of stellar customer service, no matter what industry, always made Suzan a favorite with her clients, and the same will happen for you.
Suzan adds a personal touch to everything she does and expects the same level of caring and professionalism from the senior move managers on her team. She provides the moving services and strategic vision to make MFSI the premier resource for seniors who are relocating and "right sizing.”
Julia Hugee-Pedersen
As a professional realtor, Julia realized about three years ago, that quite a few of her clients were selling their homes and moving into more manageable residences. They moved into places like Del Webb's Sun City in Huntley Illinois, senior-focused townhome and condominium developments or (more specialized) assisted living quarters. Even more noticeable to her were the numbers of them needing assistance with the moves.
Many of her clients were alone or had family members in distant places or who were too busy with other obligations to assist them with their moves. Julia was the one they turned to for help. She helped them sort, allocate, pack, ship; locate movers, appraisers, cleaning services; arrange their possessions in their new homes and sell their existing homes for fair market value.
When Julia's best friend of 35 years, Irish, told her that she was starting this business "helping seniors, boomers and busy people streamline their present residences or move into more manageable ones," Julia chuckled and replied, "I've been doing that for three years, count me in."
Assisting seniors and others with relocating requires a genuine desire to help people make a major change in their lives. Yes, it has evolved into a business, but it is a business where patience, caring, honesty and great organizational skills are its foundation. Julia and her staff truly "don't just help people move, they help them move forward."
Linda Dunn
Linda's personal experiences in senior transitions make her a strong asset to the MFSI team. Since she lived near her family members' homes, she became responsible for dealing with estates, selling the homes, and hiring for cleaning, painting, staging and landscaping.
Linda recognized the importance of downsizing when her and her husband moved to Tennessee. To prepare for this move, Linda was required to clean, paint, stage and sell two apartment buildings. To make the sale successful, she also needed to prioritize, pack and dispose of over 33 years worth of "stuff" left behind from former tenants, as well as her own belongings.
According to Linda, "I feel there is a tremendous need for assisting seniors to downsize and relocate. Through my personal experiences as well as skills developed in my sales work, I would be a natural to assist those seniors feeling overwhelmed with the downsizing process."