UCLA Undergrad Founded Starving Students, California’s Largest Local Moving Company

UCLA Undergrad Founded Starving Students, California’s Largest Local Moving Company

UCLA undergrad Ethan Margalith ’79 had many things on his mind - studying for midterms, writing papers, and of course, running his own business. What he didn’t know then was that his start-up moving company Starving Students, which he began as a way to pay for school, would grow into the nation’s leading local moving company.

Ethan and his friend Darryl Marshak could not find part-time jobs so to earn extra cash they started buying and selling antiques and collectibles at swap meets. A friend offered them a WWII weapons carrier truck on the condition that they could dig it out of a mudslide. It was challenging but they did it. Seeing the truck, swap meet customers would approach them about delivering their purchases home.

It turns out they weren’t making any money selling the antiques. One night when the rent was due, out of frustration, they wrote “Starving” on the truck in front of the words “Students for Hire.” The next day the phone rang off the hook with customers looking to hire “Starving Students.” Six months down the line, Starving Students had an office next to the Château Marmont in Hollywood and employed 30 students.

By the end of his senior year at UCLA, the young entrepreneur had opened six locations throughout Southern California to meet the growing demand for Starving Students movers.

In 1979, Ethan graduated from UCLA with a degree in philosophy and went on to earn a law degree at night from Loyola University. The opportunity with Starving Students was too good to pass up, so Ethan decided against a career in law to continue on the entrepreneurial path.

Today, 34 years after he first painted the word “Starving” on a truck, Ethan remains involved as Founder of the company, although it is run by CEO Bear Barnes, a graduate of the UCLA MBA program. Today Starving Students is the largest local mover in California and Nevada, moving over a 1,000 families each week, from its humble beginnings at UCLA. Starving Students now operates 36 locations in 9 states and its heart-centered logo is widely recognized on the 300 trucks driving around America.