—Sean Hagues

Sean Hagues started in the moving industry in 2002. His first job was a grand piano, as a helper, which is the deep end for a first day on a truck. He spent the next two decades working through every role a mover can hold: helper, the helper on the piano truck, driver, lead hand, and eventually operations manager.

He spent those years at three different moving companies, one of them out of Kenora, working as a driver and a lead hand at each before moving off the trucks and into the office at the last of them.

Why He Co-Founded Legacy

Sean wanted his name on a company that quotes honestly. No hidden costs, no fees that appear at the end of the day, and crews that treat a customer's house the way they would treat their own. That was the reason for starting Legacy with Chris and Nick in November 2023.

He has known Chris since they were ten years old. They played hockey together, then went through junior high and high school together. He met Nick at the company they both worked for before Legacy, hired him, and later brought him into the office. The three of them had worked as a unit for years before they owned anything.

Day to Day at Legacy

Sean is Legacy's operations manager. He builds the crews, assigns the days, and gets the trucks ready before anyone leaves the yard. The fleet is his: maintenance schedules, preventative checks, and making sure every truck rolls out carrying the right equipment for the specific job it is going to.

He does not go out on many moves now, though he still fills in when someone is sick or hurt, and he drops in on crews during the day to work through the awkward parts of a job with them in person.

Training the Crews

Every mover Legacy hires is trained by Sean, and none of them work unsupervised until he says so.

The first thing he tells someone on day one has nothing to do with technique. It is to be mindful of what you pick up and not to overload yourself, because a mover carrying more than he should is how floors, door frames and furniture get damaged.

What he watches hardest in a new hire's first weeks is how they set a piece down. Pull the dolly a moment too early and the item drops the last few inches instead of being lowered, which is all it takes to mark a hardwood floor. It is the one habit he will not let anyone develop, and nobody handles anything fragile or expensive on their own until he has watched them do it properly several times over.

On who lasts: the job suits someone who genuinely likes physical work and long days. Anyone looking for eight to four is in the wrong trade, and Sean would rather say so in the first week than the first month.

Two decades in, he has a long list of small tricks that prevent damage, the kind of knowledge that used to be standard in the trade and is getting harder to find. He teaches all of it.

Commercial and Office Moves

The largest office move Sean has run was an investment firm: eight movers, two trucks, five days.

What goes wrong on office moves that never goes wrong on a house move is direction. In a house there is one customer. In an office there can be five people trying to coordinate at once, none of them working from the same plan, and the crew ends up standing still.

The thing business owners forget most often is labelling. Proper labels on every box and every piece mean the crew can put things where they belong without stopping to ask as each item comes through the door.

What Sean Thinks Most Movers Get Wrong

Deliberately low estimates. A company quotes a number it knows is short in order to win the booking, then charges the real amount on the day, because the job was always going to take longer than the quote said. It is the thing in this industry that frustrates him most, because the customer has no way to see it coming.

It also has a fix. If you are holding three quotes that all look similar, ask each company for its hourly rate and its estimated hours, then compare those two numbers side by side. The quote that was never realistic usually gives itself away.

The worst advice he hears given to people planning a move is to pack in bags instead of boxes. Every bag has to be carried by hand. Boxes stack on a dolly and roll.

Memorable Jobs

Seventeen Thousand Pounds

A local move Sean estimated at two trucks and nine movers, running about 17,000 pounds. Everything went the way it was planned, nothing was damaged, and the customer could not have been happier. He rates a job by how closely the day matches the estimate, and that one matched exactly.

The Queen at the Pub

The unusual jobs tend to be statues and artwork. The one people ask about is the portrait of Queen Elizabeth that hung in the old Winnipeg Arena. Sean's crew hoisted it up from street level and hung it outside a downtown pub during a Jets playoff run, without a mark on it.

Training & Credentials

• Class 1 licence
• Air brake endorsement
• Forklift certification
• First aid certification

Winnipeg

Sean was born in Winnipeg, grew up around River Heights, and has never lived anywhere else. Two decades of moving people in and out of every part of the city means he knows it the way a cab driver does: which back lanes a five ton can actually get down, which character homes have a staircase that will not take a sectional, and which buildings need the service elevator booked a week ahead.

Outside of Work

Family, and as much of the summer at the cottage as he can manage. He plays soccer and watches a lot of sports.