A new generation at the gate

Longtime mini-storage owners turn over business to daughter, son-in-law

MOSES LAKE — Bill Conley's favorite memory of his mini-storage business is cleaning the stuff people left behind out of the units.

"Mostly junk, stuff that they don't want," he said as his family members chuckled around him.

Daughter Belinda Toy noted several people left the ashes of loved ones behind.

"No dead bodies yet," wife Millie Conley said dryly.

On Sept. 1, the Conleys turned Conley's Mini Storages over to their daughter and son-in-law, Belinda and Jim Toy, who operate as owners and on-site managers. They also own Moses Lake Upholstery.

"We know she'll do a good job," Millie said of their daughter.

Post-retirement, Bill plans to play a little golf, go camping and do lots of fishing. He and Millie will spend six months at their winter home in Palm Springs and their Basin home in the summer.

"I'm figuring on retiring permanently," he said, before pointing to his daughter. "Unless I'm out here, helping her."

"It's a big responsibility," Belinda said. She noted she has managed and overseen the operation and its bookkeeping for 15 years. "We're planning on building more storages in the future. As the town grows, there's demand for it."

"It's changed in the last few years," Bill said. "We've gotten a lot busier than what we were when we first opened up in 1978. I think more people are moving in to Moses Lake. We got people moving in from all over the United States."

Technology has changed since the early days, Bill and Belinda said, including surveillance cameras and a security fence.

Bill and Millie first drove through the Moses Lake area from Bend, Ore., on their way to the 1974 World's Fair in Spokane.

"We came back up here two weeks later," Bill remembered. He said they built and opened Bill's Body Shop in 1976, an operation he sold to son and daughter-in-law Wayne and Catherine Conley in 1984.

They opened the storage business, one of the first in town, Jan. 1, 1978, with 100 units. Today, the business has 430 inside units and 44 units outside. Building a body shop and a mini-storage in Moses Lake was always the business goal, Bill said.

"The community — I mean there ain't no other town that I've ever been — we've been to every state in the United States — that compares to Moses Lake," he said. "I love Moses Lake."

"The people are so friendly and willing to help," Millie agreed.