Eleven years ago, Tony Fox was working for a well-known moving franchise, lifting and securing everything from boxes to pianos. He was a good employee but didn’t want to work for someone else all his life.

So he opted to start his own moving business, getting family help to buy his first truck. His efforts eventually paid off.

Mr. Fox’s Maumee Valley Movers, which specializes in residential, business, and college moves, now has 34 full or part-time workers and 11 trucks and soon will break ground on a state-of-the-art 20,000-square-foot facility at 744 Capital Commons Dr. in Toledo.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted chose the Maumee firm to be one of six businesses honored in June under his Ohio Business Profile program. On Tuesday, a representative from Mr. Husted’s office was at Maumee Valley Movers, at 720 Illinois Ave., to present a Certificate of Commendation for “exemplary work” and “outstanding employees.”

Profile companies are nominated by peers and are viewed as offering interesting products or outstanding service, contributing to local communities, and employing Ohioans.

Mr. Fox, who grew up in Millbury, said that when starting his company, “I was young and didn’t know what I was doing.” But while on the job customers with business acumen would tell him he needed to stop working and start managing his business if he ever wanted it to grow.

He hired a friend, Ben Huenefeld, to be his general manager, and had to learn to trust his workers to carry out the jobs correctly, he said.

The past year the business more than doubled in size. “We had seven trucks last year, got our eighth in February, and bought three more in April and May,” he said.

Mr. Fox attributes some success to a rebounding economy, but the key is excellent workers who do a great job estimating costs and then delivering, he said. “Customer satisfaction is very important. I learned early that you take care of everybody no matter how big or small the job is,” he said.

First Published June 24, 2015, 4:00 a.m.