Rental center:
Nothing is halfway at Midway
Top-level service commitment reaches satisfied customers as far as three hours away.
Successful rental centers tend to be located in bustling, heavily populated urban areas where traffic tops the problems of equipment rental logistics.
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| Joe O’Dovero, general manager and Justin Prusi, sales manager at Midway Rentals and Sales. |
However, Midway Rentals and Sales in Negaunee, Michigan, doesn’t fit that description. Located within eyesight of Lake Superior in the far reaches of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the thriving rental center deals more with the logistics of serving the more than 16,000 square-mile region, often in sub-zero temperatures in the winter and a short, frenzied construction season that starts in late spring and ends pretty much when deer season opens in November.
History of growth
Midway Rentals and Sales started in 1979, when the O’Dovero family and Kevin Jokinen, the original general manager, found there was a demand for rental equipment with local contractors.
“I was pretty young when Midway first opened; Kevin was the general manager running it up until 2005,” says Joe O’Dovero, general manager Midway Rentals and Sales, which is a family-owned business. “My father’s company, Associated Constructors, was renting a lot of equipment out to contractors who needed it. But he just didn’t want to be in the rental business. There was no way of tracking it and keeping track of the equipment,” O’Dovero says.
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| The sun rises over Lake Superior, which is in view of Midway Rentals and Sales’ Negaumee, Michigan facility. |
“Our father decided to make his children and the general manager owners of the business. It became a totally separate company, specializing in equipment rentals and sales of contractor supplies. We started out with a small, two-car garage and expanded to where we are today,” O’Dovero says.
The company gets its name from its location that’s midway between Negaunee and Marquette, Michigan. A railroad line running behind the rental firm’s yard is the township line and is known in the area as Midway Industrial Park. “Our original plan was to serve these two towns, but it’s grown from there,” he says. Today, Midway considers all of the Upper Peninsula its customer service area.
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| Midway Rentals and Sales carries a wide variety of equipment and brands to serve the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. |
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| Unlike many rental centers, Midway Rental and Sales also sells a wide variety of tools and supplies that area contractors can’t easily find locally. |
“In the early 80s, we had quite an economic slump in this area,” recalls O’Dovero. “When the market improved, we got our first semi and trailer and started delivering equipment. That’s when we really started growing into other populated areas. Around here, there are more trees than people. We started expanding service into Houghton, Iron Mountain and Escanaba, which are a couple hours’ drive from us. That makes travel time and delivery charges a big concern for us.”
“We don’t have traffic that you’d have in a metropolitan area,” Justin Prusi, sales manager for Midway Rentals and Sales points out. “Here, a two-hour drive is at highway speeds. It is all wheel time, no wait time.”
Their sales and rental plan seems to be working. Since 2005, rentals and equipment sales have doubled. “The equipment and tool sales mirror each other. It all depends upon the construction activity in the area. For example, when the new mine came in the area in 2014, we had our best year ever. This year, there are many construction projects underway and the biggest one, the new Marquette Hospital that is a replacement for the old one, is a $300 million-plus project,” O’Dovero says.
One-stop shop
The Upper Peninsula is home to some of the country’s largest iron ore mines and lumber operations. Both have their niche suppliers that cater to their needs. General and specialty contractors, however, have far fewer choices and that’s a point of difference that Midway offers customers.
“Customers know us as a one-stop shop for rental equipment as well as construction tools and supplies,” says Prusi, “Our revenue stream is 50 percent tools and supplies and 50 percent rentals.” Unlike the big-box chain stores, Midway stocks supplies that can’t be found or in the quantities that industrial and commercial contractors need.
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| Well-equipped service trucks and experienced on-road mechanics has helped build Midway Rentals and Sales’ reputation as a reliable and responsive rental center. |
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| Meticulous maintenance processes when equipment comes off rent helps keep the fleet in shape and ready to rent. In the off-season, maintenance crews thoroughly go over equipment so it is ready for next season or readied for sale to make room for replacements. |
Midway offers a mix of rental equipment and brands. With more than 140 aerial work platforms in the fleet, it also offers about 40 pieces of smaller earthmoving equipment, two truck-mounted cranes with certified operators, nearly 40 forklifts and telehandlers, 40 pieces of generators and light towers, and 40 job site office trailers. It also offers a wide variety of attachments as well as specialized equipment, such as log processors.
Getting connected
Midway is a one-location rental center and it works hard to contact out-of-town contractors that may not be familiar with the firm. “We make sure we are in contact with all aspects of the job in the bid phase. We find out who is the owner and who is bidding, and provide them with quotes for equipment and many of the supplies they will need. The estimators and the contractors like this, and often, when that contractor gets the job, we also get the rental and supply business because they used our numbers in their bids,” says O’Dovero.
“We are experts at helping contractors find the products spec’d by the engineers and architects and can identify equivalent products because we have access to manufacturers’ design, engineering and manufacturing teams,” says Prusi. “We’ve even found mistakes in plans and we have the resources to recommend changes to design teams to address those problems.”
“When you have out-of-town contractors coming in for these jobs and they see what we have, they’re flabbergasted, because even in metro areas, they don’t see anything like this,” says Prusi.
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| “One of the first things you need on a job site is a job trailer, and it gets us talking with contractors at the beginning of the job.” -- Joe O’Dovero, general manager |
“Customers comment that our equipment seems to be in better shape than other rental centers and that’s mainly because of our effective preventive maintenance program.” -- Justin Prusi, sales manager |
Offering job site trailer rentals creates a reason for Midway to contact contractors early-on. “One of the first things you need on a job site is a job trailer, and it gets us talking with contractors at the beginning of the job,” says O’Dovero.
Once Midway has won the business, its involvement continues at the job site. When using rental equipment, there is a potential to have problems, and anyone who rents or purchases a piece of equipment from Midway gets its 24/7 fast response to any problems. “We have contractors who say they rent from us because we are responsive if there is a problem. We work very hard to keep our equipment in great shape and we’ve been told it is more reliable. Many contractors say they prefer to rent from us because if there is a problem, we are there right away to fix it. When a contractor has 10 or 20 workers stopped because of a piece of equipment, contractors will remember fast response,” O’Dovero says.
On large job sites, Midway’s technicians will show up daily to assist rental customers. “If it’s a large job, all winter long, we will have a mechanic stop by the job site first thing in the morning to see if anybody needs a hand getting something running. Not every renter understands how to start equipment when it’s -20F. It helps extend the life of our equipment. When a piece of equipment gets a chance to warm up, it makes a difference. If an operator starts a piece of equipment and takes off with it right away, it may not blow the hydraulic pump then and there, but it can certainly take life out of it,” says O’Dovero.
Operator training is another service that Midway offers customers. “Every one of our delivery persons is trained to explain proper equipment operation at delivery. We also offer train-the-trainer certification,” he adds.
Positioned for uptime
Midway’s busy season is governed primarily by the weather and secondarily by weight restrictions on roadways in the spring. During the slow times, Midway’s maintenance technicians go over equipment closely and make repairs to get it in top shape for the coming busy season. Similarly, it evaluates where each piece of equipment is in its lifecycle and will make the move to buy, sell or trade equipment to assure the busy-season fleet will be reliable and profitable for customers.
“There are no smoke and mirrors. It’s living with the commitment to serve your customers every single day. It’s doing your best, it’s taking care of the people who take care of you,” Prusi says. “One of our greatest points of difference from others that rent equipment is the quality and experience of our maintenance staff. Customers comment that our equipment seems to be in better shape than other rental centers and that’s mainly because of our effective preventive maintenance program.”
Software system update
Last winter, Midway took the plunge to replace its 20-year-old rental management software with a Point of Rental system.
“We believe that the Point of Rental system will get us the reporting features that the other software couldn’t provide. It’s much more user friendly and it’s a more modern platform. We can tailor it the way we run our business and it’s easier to use. With our old system, it was very expensive to make changes because the platform has changed so much in 20 years.
“It will help us track our maintenance costs more accurately on our assets, which is a big deal when you’re trying to compare two similar models of equipment from different manufacturers to better understand which one is more profitable after five years of owning it. We have to track the maintenance cost to make that determination,” O’Dovero says.
The software implementation took place in the dead of last winter when staff had more time to train, test and adapt to the new system. To date, the transition has been rather smooth.
“We even went to one of the Point of Rental users’ groups to hear what they were saying,” says Prusi, “All of these steps helped with our transition.” The transition is by no means complete; Midway will be implementing web-based reservation and ordering systems for customers soon.
“We’re still in the infancy of really knowing and using this software to its fullest capabilities. We’re getting comfortable with it, using it in our day-to-day work. This coming winter will be another research project to dig into the online capabilities that customers will able to see and use. Getting the delivery module added so they can track their deliveries is something they are asking for. Being able to allow our customers to shop and look at their accounts online will help us be more accessible and transparent to customers,” O’Dovero says.
Look to the future
O’Dovero envisions at least one more branch in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to further improve the company’s service capabilities to customers. “Presently, we have some customers that are three hours away. We would like to be more responsive to those customers.”
O’Dovero also foresees a more formal training track for employees. While they take advantage of specific equipment manufacturer’s training programs, the company looks forward to leveraging online training modules available through Bobcat, Doosan and Sphere1, a tool and supply buying cooperative it recently joined.
“We envision creating a syllabus of sorts, like back in college that spells out what employees are required to do in this amount of time. That’s the direction we’re going,” says Prusi.
Looking forward, the company will continue to set its sights on offering its customers a one-stop, complete equipment rental and tool/supply purchase experience with outstanding service and support capabilities.
This story originally appeared in the July-August issue of Pro contractor Rentals magazine. Copyright 2017 Direct Business Media.
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