Rental Center -- The Leppo Way

For 75 years, the Leppo family continues to follow its guiding principles to adapt and prosper in the ever-changing world of equipment sales, service and rentals.

By Clair Urbain

Few family operations make it past the second generation; for Leppo Group, the family-owned company has its eyes firmly set on the fourth generation. Their success, they believe, is their commitment to The Leppo Way.

Glenn (right) and Mike (left) Leppo represent the third and fourth generation of the family operation. The company has been in operation for more than 75 years, driven by the operating principles that it outlines in The Leppo Way.

The Leppo Way: We Will Meet Our Commitments This means: We will be at the job by the time we agreed to arrive Customer’s machines in the shop will be ready when promised If needed, we will take the time to make sure we CAN do something BEFORE we commit If “stuff” happens, we won’t hide from the problem and will communicate We Will Be Thorough This means: Our rental equipment will show up fully fueled, checked over and ready for work We will ask what you are trying to accomplish with a piece of equipment, so we can discuss alternatives that may increase your productivity We will suggest the other parts you are likely to need for the job you are doing, like axle seals and appropriate fluids when you order axle bearings. We Will Make Good Decisions We will strive for decisions that are in the best interest of: Our Customers, Our Coworkers, Our Community, Our Vendors and the Owners of the Company It is probably the line that is the hardest to apply to our daily work, but it is also one of the most important. This means we will work to find a balanced solution that doesn’t negatively impact any of the key stakeholders and is as good as possible for all of them. We Will Ask Questions When we don’t know the ‘right’ answer we will ask questions. This is more challenging than it might appear at first. FIRST you have to know what you do know, and (more importantly) what you DON’T know. Asking questions is the key to the first three:  We need to understand your needs We need to understand what you are trying to do  A “good” decision for one customer could be an awful one for another customer, so we need to make sure we understand your situation

Until recently, Leppo Rents offered two JLG 860 SJ boom lifts for rent; one supporting breast cancer awareness (below) and another for Autism Speaks (above). Ten percent of rental proceeds are donated to these causes. It plans on bringing three more themed units into the fleet that will be rented at its other locations.

“We used to be rather quiet about our donations, but we are finding that co-workers, communities and even some customers want to know how we’re giving back to the community. We’ve gotten more open about what we’ve been doing,” says Glenn Leppo, CEO.

The Leppos, over the years have come to truly appreciate the relationships that they have built with their suppliers and customers. “We have a trusted partnership with our coworkers and our vendors. We’re all striving for those win-wins. It’s not a zero sum game. I think that is the secret sauce. At the end of the day, we’re all human, we thrive on relationships,” Mike says.

This track loader has been outfitted with a Mission 22 skin, which promotes a veteran’s help organization. It was inspired by veterans who work at Leppo Rents; about 10 percent of the Leppo workforce are veterans.

What started as a dealership selling Oliver farm equipment in Akron, Ohio in 1945 has morphed into a thriving rental and equipment sales operation in 2020 and beyond.

Over the years, Leppo sold and traded equipment for a wide variety of now-defunct brands. Its longevity is based on what Glenn Leppo, Leppo Group’s CEO and third-generation owner, says is how the company does business: The Leppo Way.

The Leppo Way is based on four operating principles:

1. We will meet our commitments.
2. We will be thorough.
3. We will strive for decisions that are in the best interest of our customers, co-workers, vendors, communities and owners of the company.
4. When we don’t know the “right” answer, we will ask questions.

Today, the company owns and operates six Leppo Rents and Bobcat sales facilities in northeast Ohio as well as four Bobcat franchises in Alabama and Florida. It also operates Valco Equipment, which specializes in access equipment sales on a nationwide basis. Finally, to serve the oil and gas industry, it operates a Razor Rents location covering Ohio and Pennsylvania, which provides specialty equipment for oil and gas customers.

“We also have a Razor Rents operation in Midland, Texas. In 2016, we had customers in Ohio who began working in the Texas oil and gas fields and wanted to rent equipment from us. After we had about $10 million invested in equipment that was working in the area, we opened up a rental center there in 2018,” says Glenn.

Today, its overall fleet of equipment is valued at more than $80 million at acquisition value. “It was about $100 million before the pandemic, but we downsized to better match the market,” says Glenn, “Fortunately we have a good, strong sales arm and we were able to reduce the size of our fleet and not replace it all at this time.”

Leppo Rents, Valco and Razor Rents not only rent but also service, sell and support Bobcat on the compact equipment side and JLG, Genie, Skyjack and MEC on the access side. Its rental business is 60 percent excavation equipment and 40 percent access equipment. Glenn’s son, Mike, is active in the business as is his niece, Erin Leppo Palmer, who serves as CFO and legal counsel for the company. Across all branches and divisions, there are approximately 200 employees.

Equipment evolution
One lesson that has been taught and relearned by Leppo is that valued suppliers can go out of business. Oliver, Massey-Ferguson and Case Underground were some of the brands Leppo Equipment sold back in the day. “We even sold refrigerators and snowmobiles. We carried lawn equipment,” recalls Glenn. “That’s what you had to do to survive; find out what was working and what wasn’t. We evolved with the times. In the ’60s and ’70s, suburbia was growing and the lawn and garden business was big, but eventually the big box stores came in and customers could buy the same mower at Kmart for the same price we were paying for it.”

Over the years, the company’s focus has changed from agricultural and homeowners, says Mike Leppo, Glenn’s son and president of Northeast Ohio operations. “In terms of our customer focus, we do take care of some homeowners, but our specialty is taking care of professional contractors of various sizes. Everything from the one-man crew doing patios by himself up to companies of 200-plus people.”

Over time, the Leppo family increased its attention on the rental side of the operation as customers shifted their preference from owning to renting equipment. “Excavators that are under 40,000 pounds and telehandlers are our most popular rentals, followed by skid-steer and compact track loaders. After that, it’s access equipment – boom lifts and scissor lifts. We also rent Hydro-Mobile mast-climbing work platforms. The climbing work platforms is a different model than rental; it’s more like a sales model, where the equipment is assembled in place and disassembled once the job is finished,” explains Glenn.

The rental fleet is made up of models from Bobcat, Bosch, Butler, Canycom, Caterpillar, CST Berger, Dayton, Diamond, Doosan, EDCO, Equipment Pro, EZG Mfg., Gehl, Genie, Goosen, Husqvarna, Hyundai, Indy, Ingersoll-Rand, Iron & Oak, JLG, Kaeser, Lincoln, Lincoln Electric, Lull, MEC, Miller, MultiQuip Whiteman, Okada, Pettibone, Shark, Sky Trak, Skyjack, Stihl, Stumper, Subaru, Toku, Val6, Vermeer, Volvo and Wacker Neuson.

“We tend to have a much newer fleet than the nationals or even most independent rental centers,” says Glenn. Typically, units in the rental fleet are no more than three years old. “Because we’re also active on the sales side, we can turn our fleet faster. It’s great to have that flexibility. In December 2020, we sold a ton of equipment and we will need to replace it. We sold off skid steers because skid steers aren’t as popular as they once were. We won’t replace them with more skid steers; we’ll replace them with more track loaders because that is what the rental market is asking for. Similarly, small excavators are not as popular today; customers are trending toward larger models so we will replace them with larger models. We replace them with the models that customers want.”

Giving back
Charity and philanthropy are an important part of The Leppo Way, says Mike. “It really is a part of our corporate culture and it runs throughout all levels of the company.”

“For example, if a young man working on his Eagle Scout project needs an auger drive to put in posts along the path, or needs equipment to place benches in the woods, we provide that. We used to be rather quiet about our donations, but we are finding that co-workers, communities and even some customers want to know how we’re giving back to the community. We’ve gotten more open about what we’ve been doing,” says Glenn.

Its most visible efforts are two boom MEWPs that promote Autism Speaks and breast cancer awareness. Leppo also rents out a compact track loader that supports Mission 22, a veteran’s assistance group and an excavator that features the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research; Glenn was diagnosed with Parkinson’s approximately eight years ago.

“About 10 percent of our employees are veterans, and they came up with this idea,” says Glenn. “My wife is a breast cancer survivor, so that’s another reason to support these causes.”

The themed machines are rented out to high-profile jobs and 10 percent of the rental rates are donated to those causes.

“We also donate to many other organizations. Each facility, on their own, comes up with a charity to support each year. When the pandemic hit this year, we gave all 15 offices $5,000 each to donate to a local cause of their choice for COVID-19 relief,” says Mike.

Machine repair and maintenance
Because Leppo is involved with both renting and selling/servicing/repairing equipment, they have set the maintenance shop up so that the left side is used for machine sales and repair and the right side is used for rental make-ready.

“Leppo maintenance technicians are all factory-trained, but those working on the sales and service side are trained more extensively so they can tackle the big repair jobs that come in from customers. The rental maintenance people are trained to turn machines around quickly, but thoroughly.

“We also have a paint shop that we use to bring equipment back to like-new and also use it to paint or skin the rentals that promote the charities we support,” says Mike.

Making the most of relationships
Over the years, the Leppos have come to truly appreciate the relationships that they have built with their suppliers and customers.

“We have developed trusted partnerships, but it’s not a dollar thing. We have dairy farmers in the area that we have built a trusted partnership with because they need to keep their skid loaders or track loaders running to feed the herd. We’ve built good relationships with the customer who buys a machine once every couple of years to the customer that comes to us every day because they have a fleet of 10 machines to keep operating,” says Mike.

“We also have a trusted partnership with our coworkers and our vendors. We’re all striving for those win-wins. It’s not a zero sum game. I think that is the secret sauce. At the end of the day, we’re all human, we thrive on relationships,” Mike says.

Being a sales and service operation as well as an equipment rental facility means that the Leppo organization must have a fully outfitted shop at its locations. At its main location in Canton, Ohio, service work flows through the left side of the shop and rental returns are handled on the right side of the shop where incoming units are thoroughly inspected and readied for their next rental.

This article appeared originally in the March-April 2021 issue of Pro Contractor Rentals magazine. ©2021 Urbain Communications LLC. All rights reserved.

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