Family-run The J. Morey Company helps protect communities with Adobe Acrobat

“Remember where you come from. Create a new future.” That is the motto that drives Joshua Morey, president of The J. Morey Company and chairperson of its holding company, Ori-gen. “The idea is that everything I do honors the decisions of those who come before me — my father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather — but I look another three generations in the future when I’m deciding what’s best for the company,” says Joshua.

A second-generation business leader, Joshua took over the company founded in 1980 by his father, John, and his uncles, Jack and James. J. Morey has always been a trusted name, particularly in Japanese-American communities where the company got its start. Under Joshua’s leadership, the company has also grown dramatically, from 18 employees in four offices to 150 employees in 11 offices, to reach more communities in California and Hawaii.

Part of the rapid growth comes from how Joshua has embraced technology to improve efficiencies, which allows employees to provide better service to even more customers. With Adobe Acrobat, Joshua replaced piles of paperwork and hours of work with fast and simple e-signatures and PDF fillers.

“My brothers and I are Joshua’s greatest cheerleaders,” says John. “It makes me so proud to see how he’s keeping the legacy of who we are and leading it into the future.”

We talked with Joshua about running a second-generation business that respects its past while building a stronger future.

Protecting homes, businesses, and communities

The Morey family has been a part of the Little Tokyo community in Los Angeles for 125 years. Joshua’s great-grandfather started his first business, The Asian Company, in 1907, ten years after immigrating to Little Tokyo. But after returning from the incarceration camps, the Morey's discovered that there was nothing left of their company. The family started a rice distribution company before Joshua’s grandfather left to join a less physically demanding position at an insurance agency.

“When my family got back to Little Tokyo after World War II, they had to start over,” says Joshua. “I think that this was the event that planted the seed of how insurance can have a great impact on communities by protecting families and companies.”

In 1980, the Morey brothers started their own insurance agency in Cerritos, California, just a short drive from Little Tokyo. The J. Morey Company grew steadily over the years, expanding to three offices. When Joshua decided to join the company in 2009, his dad and uncles insisted that he needed to have a physical presence in a community to better connect with customers. That’s why a year later, Joshua opened an office in Little Tokyo.

“J. Morey used to have an office in Little Tokyo, but my dad had moved to San Jose Japantown to help continue the legacy of another Japanese-American insurance agency: the Mineta Insurance Agency, run by Norman Mineta and his family,” says Joshua. “So, when I was told I needed to open my own office, reopening a location in Little Tokyo seemed like the best choice.”

“People started coming in, all of these people who knew my dad and uncles and grandfather,” recalls Joshua. “It was great for business, but more importantly, it helped me understand what my family means to Little Tokyo. It got me even more excited about protecting what we have, preserving not just assets, but legacies.”

Taking the company into the next generation

The first generation of John, Jack, and James finally got the opportunity to retire in 2015, knowing that their company was safe in the hands of Joshua. Joshua’s first action as president of The J. Morey Company was to digitize paperwork.

Like many insurance agencies at the time, J. Morey relied on physical paperwork and wet signatures. They would email contracts and forms to customers who would need to print documents, sign them, scan them, and email them back. Employees would need to enter information into electronic systems and then store signed papers in rows of filing cabinets.

With Acrobat, Joshua digitized that paperwork overnight. More than 500,000 organizations trust Adobe to drive speed and efficiency with 30 percent faster transactions. For J. Morey Company, e-signatures mean that documents can be signed, password protected, and sent in a minute, rather than taking 20 minutes. “With the ability to sign a PDF, we freed up probably 10 hours a month per employee,” says Joshua. “We could serve more businesses and operate more profitably, which helped us to grow and hire more people.”

Protecting legacies with technology

When Joshua took over from his family, the company had 18 employees in four offices. Just three years later, he had 150 employees in 11 offices across California and Hawaii.

“When my brothers and I started out, our tech was telephone, fax, and carbon paper,” recalls John. “What Joshua and his team are doing, this next generation, it’s a completely new way of running the business. To see Joshua and the company continuing to thrive is something beyond what I could have imagined.”

“We started exclusively using Acrobat in 2020 for all digital documents because it does the job of multiple solutions in one platform,” says Joshua. “A great part is that as we scale, Acrobat can grow with us. We’re taking the legacy of the company and magnifying it with technology to reach even more people in the communities we serve.”

Learn more about what Adobe Acrobat can do here.