business (Sc rof ssional Storing Success from page 31 Contribute Today to the Hospice Hero Fund Every day, hundreds of patients and thousands of family members count on their Hospice Heroes for comfort, kindness and spiritual guidance. Can they count on you? Because No Jew Should Ever Be Alone JRNisHc4IcE & CHAPLAINCY NETWORK" Adding the Jewish Component to Hospice Care 6555 W. Maple Rd. • West Bloomfield, MI 48322 • 248.592.2687 we get tna So, we've created, even . MOW effective Slie- t.'1) acc>ess the news events firid ophions_ irn0Qrtont- tp this corilffiunIt\i, easy to navigate 4, streaming headlines photo galleries • event calendars • lifecyc es 4, contests and games Hog s feedback forms • archiving • community listings "sec' us out @ JNonlineuus 32 December . 14 2006 well-regarded specialist" in the stor- age industry, "a real professional and a visionary who exudes confidence in all of his ventures." Added Shevin: "That's why we rec- ommend him highly to investors for his storage facility projects." Polk & Associates has been doing accounting work for Pogoda for 15 years. Self-storage was far from Pogoda's mind when he attended a Hebrew day school in Brooklyn, studied math and science at a specialty high school, and majored in history and English at the University of Pennsylvania. "Then I took a few years off and lived in Charleston, S.C., which is a charming city; it was a great learning experience:' he said. "But I returned to reality and got an MBA at the University of Michigan, where I met my wife. That's when Lever Brothers recruited me." He and Lori have been married 24 years and have three sons. The new Redford facility has already exceeded projected sales since opening in August, which Pogoda attributes to the good vis- ibility on Telegraph. "This is the first site in several years that perfectly meets our selection criteria:' he said. "There's lush, new landscaping, a park-like green space that replaced an asphalt area, and the attractive building itself. It really provides a sharp contrast to our retail and light industrial neighbors!" Range Of Space National Storage Center rents units ranging from 50 to 300 square feet in a two-story, interior climate-con- trolled area, most accessed from interior hallways. Two covered areas allow sheltered loading and unload- ing. Drive-up units along the sides and rear range from 100 square feet to 20-by-30 feet, a size in demand by small contractors, who use the larger spaces to store inventory. "But a typical rental is a 5-by-10 area that costs $69 a month," pointed out Tom Berlin, vice president of operations for Pogoda Companies. "The larger areas go as high as $269 monthly. People can adjust rental areas in five-foot increments. The sizes are displayed in our showroom. Rental space is about 70 percent corn- mercial and the rest personal. We also sell packing and moving supplies to customers, which gives our storage centers a one-stop shopping feature." National Storage Center attracts customers through Yellow Pages ads, Internet ads, and plenty of direct mail contact, mainly through Val Pack coupon mailers. "We constantly keep our name in front of prospective cus- tomers:' said Berlin. "If people need storage space, they'll know we're out there!' According to Pogoda and Berlin, customers have a wide variety of reasons for using self-storage: people who sell a home and need some place to put their furnishings because they can't get into their new place when expected; when someone dies and the family can't immediately decide how to dispose of their belongings; phar- maceutical representatives who store their medical samples; inventories of small businesses; people who just want to relieve their homes of clutter. "Some of our customers are here every day," Pogoda observed. "It's hard to believe, but a murderer put a dead body in cold storage at one of our places — unbeknownst to us, of course. After he confessed, the police came and took the body out. The bank robber who made off with $400,000 in cash probably figured no one would look in self-storage for it. Police came and got that, too. "The FBI showed up to get the drug dealer's inventory. "The strangest case was the home- less man who lived in his small rental space. Our employees got suspicious when they saw him here so often, coming back and forth on a bike. I guess it was cheaper than renting an apartment." In his mobile home park venture, Pogoda says the biggest challenge is the ups and downs of the economy. "When the economy is poor, people can't afford anything more than a mobile home, so business is good at our locations," he said. "When the economy is good and interest rates are low, that allows tenants to upgrade themselves into regular homes and our business drops off!' Pogoda's seven mobile home parks average about 200 units at an average size of 14-by-70 feet. Last year, he reaped a bonanza by selling six other mobile home parks for $26 million to a national organization. "It was an offer I just couldn't refuse," he said. Pogoda shares the fruits of his success with many charities through his Pogoda Family Foundation. These include Congregation B'nai Moshe, where he serves on the Endowment Committee, Yad Ezra, JARC, Karmanos Cancer Institute and others.