The first Quick Messenger Service opened in Montreal during the Summer of
'69, a few weeks before Neil Armstrong made "Just one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind." The Woodstock era startup soon expanded to
locations in Toronto and Ottawa.
In the summer of 1985, Ken Bell, the owner of QMS Ottawa, opened Quick
Messenger Service at its current G Street location in downtown Washington.
We started with ten drivers, but were soon doing two hundred orders per
day. The following year, Mark Gross was elevated to General Manager from
his position as a bicycle courier.
Like other Quick Messenger Service operations, QMS-DC was focused on
businesses that need to have deliveries done in the downtown core.
QMS-DC grew to be the premier on-demand courier company in Washington by
hiring the best dispatchers available and then using them to recruit the
best couriers. Word spread that QMS did a lot of deliveries, and there
was the opportunity for couriers to earn high commissions. This allowed
us to expand our client base outwards into northern Virginia as well as
Montgomery and Prince Georges County, Maryland.
Today, QMS Washington services over 2000 active clients. QMS DC has
completed over 4 million on demand deliveries. Together with Montreal,
Ottawa, and Toronto, well over 15 million deliveries have been completed
on time and at tremendous value. We're proud of our accomplishments yet
look forward to exceeding them in the years to come