Storelocal, the Self Storage Industry’s Cooperative, adds Keylock Storage as a Founding Member
(PRWEB) March 01, 2016 -- Storelocal, the self storage industry’s cooperative, adds Keylock Storage of Boise, ID as a founding member. Based in Boise, ID, Keylock Storage is an owner and operator of self storage facilities in Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Keylock Storage will add 6 facilities to the co-op, bringing Storelocal’s total membership to more than 700 facilities.
Ron Osborne, Owner and CEO of Keylock Storage, cited previous association experience as a main factor in Keylock’s decision to join the self storage co-op. For more than a decade, Osborne was a part of a national employee benefits association similar to what Storelocal is for the self storage industry.
“It was very, very helpful and we were able to interact with firms like us around the country. When we found out about Storelocal and got checking into it, we said, ‘Oh my goodness! This is very, very similar to what we experienced in the employee benefit arena.’ It looks and feels and smells amazingly like that. The more we got checking into it we said, ‘We’ve got to be a part of this.’, because we were in the other association from the ground up and helped build it and were very involved participants and saw it grow and helped various members a lot and we wanted to be able to do the same here in the storage business,” Osborne said. “Some of the advantages we could really see and we experienced right off, which we experienced in that other association, is as a group we can purchase much more cost effective vendor services and the other thing we saw in Storelocal that was extremely appealing to us is that we would be able to play at least in the ball park like REITs.”
Lance Watkins, Storelocal CEO, also cited Osborne’s employee benefits experience as a factor contributing to Keylock’s addition to the co-op.
“Ron Osborne has a unique background in employee benefits programs. He and his son are building a portfolio of stores and they have a very modest growth rate that they’re targeting for 2020 and we’re excited to add them to StorageFront,” Watkins said. “They’ll be a great founder in being able to mentor us with an employee benefit program that will help us all offer benefits to our employees across the co-op.”
Keylock Storage is Storelocal’s first member in the Pacific Northwest and plans to help the co-op expand in the area.
“Since Storelocal didn’t have anybody in the Northwest, we wanted to be on board early on to help here,” Osborne said. “[Storelocal membership] would be absolutely a huge advantage to [the small to medium sized operator], even if they’re looking at it from a purely selfish way. Being able to achieve economies of scale when purchasing form the various vendors would be huge to them, so it seems like a no brainer.”
Every prospective Founder is subject to a rigorous approval process by the Storelocal Board of Directors. Storelocal’s bylaws limit Founder membership to 30 companies. Keylock Storage is the 21st company to receive this honor, with more companies under active consideration.
About Storelocal: Storelocal is a cooperative of self storage owners and operators working together to solve industry challenges. Co-op members leverage existing and new resources to provide solutions for customer acquisition, operational services and technology products, thereby bridging the efficiency gap between the top national operators and online reservation systems. To learn more about the Storelocal co-op, visit the Storelocal website, http://www.storelocal.com or call Natalie Bragg, Director of Public Relations, at 949-629-4142.
About Keylock Storage: Keylock Storage facilities are owned and operated by Keylock Storage Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bitterroot Holdings LLC. The company opened its first facility in 2003 and has self-storage properties in Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
Karen Jones, StoreLocal, http://www.storelocal.com, +1 (714) 343-3198, [email protected]
Share this article