There’s the old saw about the shoemaker’s children having no shoes, but VIP Transport is the exception. At number 22 on its list of top 25 moves, VIP’s own East Coast office required 60 truckloads and was staged over eight weeks.
Top ranked in the VIP list is the Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope it moved for NASA. The telescope was valued at $500 million and had to cross the country in a climate lab transporter vehicle (LTV), moving from the Stanford University Linear Accelerator Facility in Palo Alto, Calif. to the Naval Research Facility in Washington, D.C. The LTV is a special transport vehicle designed to carry entire laboratories while allowing them to remain operational during transport. The LTV can keep freezers, refrigerators and other equipment operating during the move, avoiding the loss of reagents, according to VIP.
Looking for a little history? VIP also transported the Dead Sea Scrolls, a 1,500-pound life-size terra cotta warrior from the Imperial Tombs of China Exhibit, artifacts from the R.M.S. Titanic tour and Princess Diana’s dresses.
Too heavy, what about sports? VIP received official mover status from the professional hockey team, the Los Angeles Kings and, for the last 17 years has been moving the athletes, their families, the administrative and management personnel and coaching staffs. It is also the official mover for the National Basketball Association team, the Golden State Warriors. And, blending history and sports, it transported the “Baseball As America” tour, which included such items as the Doubleday Ball from baseball’s first game in 1839, Norman Rockwell’s painting of The Three Umpires, and the record setting bats of Babe Ruth, Mark McGuire and Roger Maris.
