Bobby and Becky Mills were making a fresh start when they stumbled upon the shipping container business by accident.

Bobby lost his job in the oil and gas industry and Becky, a longtime registered nurse, tired of the healthcare field.

“We had to figure out something to do,” Becky told The Register. “We were getting close to retirement.”

The couple sold their house in Montgomery, Texas, and relocated to Purcell. Bobby had a commercial driver’s license and started hauling the sizable steel containers for others.

“We bought some containers for ourselves,” he recalled. “That was our first exposure to the shipping container industry. Some of ‘em were pretty ugly; they were beat up and nasty looking from the inside.”

So, Bobby and Becky fixed them up, painted them yellow on the outside and white on the inside and Ugly Duck Containers, 25045 State Highway 39, was born in 2022.

“Becky said her mom always told her that it’s what’s on the inside that matters, so that is our logo,” Bobby, 57, said.

The couple’s rental fleet is painted yellow. A graphic designer friend came up with the Ugly Duck logo.

“I said, ‘I want something that is more memorable than Buc-ee’s beaver,” Becky, 63, recalled. “Everybody loves the Ugly Duck.”

Ugly Duck rents and sells new and used shipping containers and delivers them anywhere in Oklahoma. Bobby and Becky also sell modular and portable structures at their shop, which is painted yellow with an orange roof.

“We can get our customers anything they want,” Bobby said. “Refrigerated containers, open-top containers and a variety of specialty containers. But we primarily move 40-foot and 20-foot shipping containers.”

The couple also operates a “hot shot” trucking business, a specialized service that uses a small truck and trailer that can “pick up and deliver quickly,” Bobby said.

“This is where the trucking company comes in handy because we handle our own logistics,” he said.

Ugly Duck purchases the containers from shipping companies and then travels to inland ports in places like Memphis or the Dallas-Fort Worth area to pick them up.

“We go to these ports and buy the containers that they’ve decommissioned for whatever reason,” he said. “With our trucking company we bring them back here to our facility in Purcell.”

The containers are then inspected and repaired by Bobby and his staff.

“We make sure that the roof doesn’t have any holes in it. If it does have holes in it ... we fix them,” he said. “We make sure that the floor is solid and then we wash it and most importantly, we fix the doors. We’re very proud of the fact that our doors are easier to open than other container companies.”

The containers are used mostly for storage or residential use, such as home repairs, Becky said.

“A lot of our customers are tired of paying for brick-and-mortar storage,” she said. “A lot of men use them for shops, and then we have a lot of farmers and ranchers that use them to store their tractors and feed and hay. The containers that we sell would be considered rodent free; mice can’t get into them.”

Ugly Duck will modify containers by installing doors and windows, even partitions, and the couple has hired a staff of three to assist with new designs for chicken coops, bunk houses, and tack rooms.

“We’ve kind of questioned our customers, and there’s definitely interest in bunk houses and tack rooms,” Bobby said. “That’s a long-term goal; we want to get into that soon. We’re cutting our teeth right now on some simpler projects.”