From 240,000 square feet in two and a half days to a once-in-a-lifetime ceremony — a story about moving what matters most.
Some moves are measured in trucks and timelines. Others carry something that can’t be quantified.
Meyer’s work supporting the relocation of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was both.
A Project Built for Speed
When HUD made the decision to relocate its Washington, DC headquarters to a new facility in Alexandria, Virginia, the timeline was unambiguous: move approximately 3,500 employees out of the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building and their other locations within the District — and into their new home as quickly as possible. The Weaver Building, a massive, 1.3 million square foot concrete structure built in the 1960s and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, had become increasingly costly and difficult to maintain. Moving fast was the only option.
Meyer executed the project as part of a long-standing partnership with Bering Straits Native Corporation, a relationship built across more than a decade, and some of the most demanding federal environments in the country, including Dover Air Force Base, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, and the U.S. Secret Service Training Facility. For this project, Meyer also partnered with JK Moving Services, one of Meyer’s Office Moving Alliance partners in the DC area whose team provided essential labor, trucking, materials, and equipment.
The numbers tell part of the story. When HUD’s housing division — spanning three full floors — needed to relocate in just three days, Meyer and its partner teams rose to the moment. Four trucks ran from 7:30 am until 7:30 pm, then again the following day. When it was over, 240,000 square feet of staff, equipment, and materials had been relocated in two and a half days. The full project — nearly 3,500 people across an entire federal agency — was completed within roughly a month.
But the numbers aren’t what made this project unforgettable.
A Once-in-a-Lifetime Responsibility
Within HUD’s Office of Native American Programs, three ceremonial headdresses of extraordinary historical significance needed to be moved alongside the organization. Each is a replica ceremonial piece— no genuine eagle feather headdresses are gifted outside of their tribes. Two were presented to former HUD secretaries. One was gifted to U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower, in the 1950s. Seven hand-crafted quilts of similar cultural significance also required careful transport.
Moving them required more than logistics. It required ceremony.
A senior tribal leader representing the Sioux Nation — one of only a handful of individuals in the country entrusted with this kind of ritual responsibility — was brought in for the occasion. Before any of the headdresses could be moved, he burned sweet grass and offered prayers in his Native language. By the tribal leader’s own account, he couldn’t remember the last time he had been asked to do something like this. Moving these objects is, if anything, a once-in-a-lifetime event.
Meyer’s team never touched the headdresses. That was as it should be. Their role was to be present, to be prepared, and to ensure that everything surrounding the moment was handled with the care it deserved. When it came time to transport the headdresses to their new home, Meyer arranged a private driver for the tribal leader and his cargo. The journey was made with the dignity it warranted.
Trusted with What Matters
For Joe Capodanno, Meyer’s Senior Consultant, Global Workplace Solutions, who oversaw Meyer’s part in this engagement, the experience stood apart even against a career full of complex, high-stakes work. “It was something that very rarely happens,” he said. “One of those once-in-a-career events.”
That trust — being the organization that federal agencies, long-term partners, and cultural stewards rely on when the stakes are highest — is not something Meyer takes for granted. It is earned over years of showing up, executing precisely, and caring about the details others might overlook. It is what a partnership with an exceptional organization like Bering Straits is built on. And it is, in a quiet way, what a limo for a tribal leader and three headdresses says about who Meyer is.
