Meet Lauren Feeney of Trojan Storage

Recent attendee shares experience of attending TSN RV & Boat Storage Workshop

Lauren Feeney graduated from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and entered the self-storage industry almost immediately. She worked in operations at Trojan Storage doing both marketing and revenue management for four years before leaving for a few years to work on international sales strategy at FIJI Water and in consumer-packaged goods. She circled back to Trojan Storage over three years ago, this time in acquisitions, actively buying properties in every lifecycle. “I strongly feel that market improvement and ability to deploy capital should keep us active on this front into 2026,” she says. 

This summer, Lauren attended the Toy Storage Nation Workshop in Anaheim. Knowing she has more than seven years of experience in a wide range of storage applications, we asked for her feedback regarding the workshop. Did she feel the daylong program was worthwhile? We sat Lauren down for a short Q&A to learn more.

To start, can you please tell us about Trojan Storage: when it was founded, why, mission, vision, goals, anything you’d like to share about it, especially the brand’s RV/boat storage focus?

Trojan Storage was founded in 2007 by USC Alums, Brett Henry and John Koudsi. The company took off quickly as it was well positioned for growth through prudent acquisitions, land development, operational efficiencies and strong company culture.

Since I started working here, the corporate office has grown from 12 employees to 60, with five office migrations in between as we expanded rapidly. Now, the portfolio consists of 50 properties, both ground up and development. Our focus is on traditional self-storage, but we’re always looking to broaden our horizons with RV parking avenues. Many of our facilities have extra land that we utilize for RV and boat storage as a strong ancillary income to storage and an optimization of our storage parcels.

What prompted/inspired you to register for the TSN RV & Boat Storage Workshop?

With my focus on acquisitions, all the cutting-edge technology, improvements and optionality that’s come out of the RV and boat storage space in the last several years is important for me to keep a pulse on so that I can sharpen my underwriting to opportunities outside of traditional parking models. The space and capabilities have transformed since I first joined storage in 2015, and any way we can increase our dollar per foot with tools available to us is interesting to understand.

Were there any areas of developing/operating/managing toy storage that you wanted to focus on specifically?

We own the Revenue Management System, QuikStor. So, part of my interest was learning more about the RMS capabilities that exist for boat- and RV-focused facilities, as well as understanding the current pain points that exist in that space for those owners and operators.

Specific to acquisitions, a few significant areas of interest include canopy storage, creative use of solar on parking for our warmer regions and increasing ancillary income opportunities in order to branch away from traditional asphalt parking.

What were some of the key takeaways from the workshop? Any data, facts or information shared during the event that particularly surprised you in any way?

It was interesting talking to the experts in the industry about the operational differences by state when it comes to running RV and boat storage; for example, with solar power in California, the state actually lets you resell power back to the state through Net Surplus Compensation programs (CA Assembly Bill 920)–an added incentive to include solar on canopy parking.

I also learned a lot about the differences in dollar-per-foot construction costs of adding canopy and/or canopy with solar to parking. The one-time construction fees are nominal in comparison to the rent you could achieve long term by adding these structures to traditional parking models.

Based on your experience at the workshop, who do you think can benefit by attending (developers, investors, operators, marketers, etc.)?

The speakers and the quality of conversation in the round tables could benefit a wide range of positions and operators, ranging from owners first starting out to longstanding owners in the field looking to check out cutting-edge innovations and comparing strategies with peers and vendors. 

Can you describe how the overall experience will help you enhance your career goals? Were you able to take back information to colleagues that could benefit the business?

Understanding trends for the consumer in the boat and RV space also directly informs what’s going on under the universal self-storage umbrella and consumer health trends in general. The micro trends of this market (buying patterns, rent increase absorption, supply and demand, and local legislation) can indicate important directional trends that benefit us all. I found the conference and the material brought out by Toy Storage Nation to be comprehensive and highly practical. 

TSN’s next RV & Boat Storage Workshop is slated for Dallas, Sept. 26, 2025. Stay tuned for upcoming dates on the toystoragenation.com website. 

Toy Storage Nation