Rental Center -- Rental Center Revamp
American Rental has transformed into a four-division rental facility bult during the height of COVID-19.
by Clair Urbain
While many rental centers are multi-generational family affairs, Brad Kniep, American Rental’s director of operations, got fully into the world of rental center ownership when he started Morton Rental in Morton, Illinois in 2011.
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| American Rental co-owners (l to r): Brad Kniep, director of operations, Galen Rocke, head of the Crane and Aerial division and Robert LeVar, co-owner and shop manager. |
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| American Rental has added three drive-up/through lanes to expedite tool and equipment pick-up and drop-off. |
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| The new American Rental building is the headquarters for its tool and equipment rental operation, Create a Scene event rental, Crane and Aerial division and Towing division. |
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The American Rental showroom puts high-volume tools and equipment within easy reach for rental orders. |
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| The Create a Scene showroom allows clients to see table settings and arrangements set up; no other event rental center in the area offers this service. |
Morton Rental first carried a limited inventory of event supplies as well as several pieces of used equipment. In 2015, he expanded the business by buying American Rental Center in Peoria that was primarily into party and event supplies. Its inventory was older and it had little social media presence. He changed that location’s name to Peoria Rentals and carried some equipment inventory at its facility in Peoria Heights, just north of Peoria.
“We had customers who would call both stores for pricing for events and equipment, thinking it was two different companies. It created quite a bit of duplicate work for us, so in 2021 we rebranded both equipment rental branches to American Rental. Today, we are one company with two equipment locations,” says Kniep.
Further, the event side of the business has merged with Create a Scene, which is an events rental business operated by Kristy Howell and Sue Hohulin. American Crane and Aerial was launched January 1, 2022 and offers a variety of cranes and aerial equipment that reaches 50 feet in height or more. It also has a separate towing division. Between the two branches and four divisions, American Rental employs approximately 50 people.
“We’ve had some great growth over the years and it’s not because of anything special about me. We have a great team and great leaders,” says Kniep.
One of those leaders is Robert LeVar, American Rental shop manager and co-owner. “I met Brad at his opening day in 2011 and worked for him during the winter maintaining and fixing equipment,” LeVar recalls. “I had a landscape business and worked for an area farmer, so it fit well with that workload. It was a barter situation. I worked for him in the winter and got free use of his equipment in the summer.”
After five years in the landscaping business, LeVar was burned out; Brad was in the same boat. “We talked about it, and Brad suggested I sell my business and join forces with him. I was able to split my business and sell it to two other people. With those proceeds and some of the equipment that I kept, I became a partner in the business.”
New rental center
In 2020, with almost a decade of solid growth behind them, American Rental was ready to undertake its most ambitious project to date: build a new rental center in Morton that would accommodate the party and event Create a Scene side of the business and a new, spacious equipment rental center with state-of the-art drive-up service for tool and equipment pick-ups and drop-offs.
“We started on this just before the pandemic hit,” recalls Kniep. “We had to lay off half of our staff, downsize the building’s plans a bit and to keep everyone left fully employed, decided to tackle as much of the construction that we could ourselves. It was a huge undertaking.”
Over the years, the management team has talked with hundreds of other rental center managers across the country. “Whenever we went to shows, we would line up visits with other rental centers to talk about their operations. We take the approach that we are the dumbest person in the room. We usually walked away with one or two great ideas from each visit,” says Kniep.
The new facility is the company headquarters for all four divisions. The building greatly expands the shop’s ability to work on equipment inside. “We wanted a facility where we could work on any piece of equipment on the inside of the building. The building has zoned in-floor radiant heat. They have also set up stock-fill arrangements with suppliers for consumables such as fuel, DEF, lubricants, fasteners and other types of parts,” says LeVar.
“During COVID, we also went to more online parts ordering. Any other process or service that others can do for us, we try to contract that out. It cuts down on the little things that take up time,” LeVar adds. He estimates that the inside workspace has doubled the shop’s productivity.
The building is outfitted with LED lighting and motion sensors to activate lights in specific areas when team members are present. “I don’t know how many times when I would come into our old building at 2 a.m. and find lights on,” LeVar recalls. “We’ve also zoned the HVAC system to best match the work environment needed. The showrooms, offices, warehouses and workrooms all have different temperature needs.”
COVID also caused the remaining crew to rethink its customer base. With the event side business grinding to an abrupt halt, the staff needed to find new customers…fast.
They began reaching out to local, state and federal healthcare organizations to rent tents for pop-up COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites. “We were able to rent out nearly all of our tents. Our event revenue in 2020 was down a massive amount, but tool rental went up as people started doing more DIY projects. It made us realize that it’s good to not have all your eggs in one basket,” says Kniep.
Drive-through tool and equipment pick up
The drive-through tool and equipment rental pickup was planned before the pandemic hit. It relies of Point of Rental’s online ordering system. “We have one window plus two other lanes with fast-food type drive-up speakers and cameras. I think we are on the cutting edge of this for equipment rental centers. Customers can request a quote for items online and reserve it for a specific timeframe. We tell them automatically if it’s available and reserve it for them. We think it will really speed up our equipment pick-ups. They can order online, sign for it, get it loaded and pay for it electronically without getting out of their vehicle. It’s touchless,” says Kniep.1
Event facility
Equal amount of thought went into the event and party side of the business. The showroom allows Howell and Hohulin to set up a display for the planner to see what tables, linens, chairs and table settings will look like for the event.
Instead of individual flower coolers, the facility has a large walk-though cooler where flowers are stored before arranging and placed when ready for delivery. Before the event, the client can see the floral arrangements before they are delivered. “No one else in the area offers that service,” says Howell.
While they used to subcontract laundry and dish rental, they now stock those items. When the laundry and dishes come back from an event, they are run through state-of-the-art washing facilities then stored in trays and are bagged to assure they stay clean until then next use. A dry cleaner style hanging conveyor will store linens in unused overhead space.
Aerial division
American Rental identified that its trade area was not well-served with crane service and aerial equipment that can reach higher than 50 feet. So as of January 1, 2022, it established a crane and aerial division at American Rental, which is headed up by Galen Rocke, also a co-owner, who has worked with cranes and aerial equipment for more than 15 years and in American Rental’s shop for three years before becoming part of the Aerial Lift and Crane division. “Our service area reaches from the Iowa to Indiana borders up to almost the Chicago area and not quite to the southern tip of Illinois,” he says.
The fleet features a variety of high-lift aerials, ranging to 135 feet as well as RT 70T cranes for day jobs to 9-ton carry deck, lattice boom and crawler cranes. It also features 8,000- to 12,000-pound telehandlers.
“We are a non-union shop, so we are more flexible and can react faster in most cases,” Rocke says. “We can also supply an operator for some of the larger cranes if the customer needs one.”
The new division, like the other divisions at American Rental, faces employment challenges. “This equipment usually must be moved by operators with a Class A commercial driver’s license (CDL). Federal law was recently updated, so now Class A CDL drivers must go through schooling. Additionally, crane operators must meet National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators (NCCCO) requirements.
“This is a small industry, and everyone knows everyone else. To get new employees in this field, we will have to help train them into the position. We are always on the lookout for workers who are honest, have a work ethic and are mechanically inclined. Having a background in agriculture is a plus,” Rocke adds.
Future challenges
Kniep agrees that finding employees remains one of the company’s top challenges. “We’ve tried what everyone else has tried with the same amount of success. We find our best employees come from people who know who we are and what we are about before they apply. They get to know us, like how we do business, and sometimes hint about applying for a job.”
Post-pandemic parts and equipment availability are also a constant challenge. “We try to go with OEM parts, but in some instances, they are very hard to get. We have one concrete buggy that needs a new engine, and it’s been on back-order for months and we still don’t know when we’ll be getting it. That’s a piece of equipment that has high demand but makes us nothing as it sits in the shop waiting for the engine to arrive,” says LeVar.
LeVar keeps an eye on equipment turns and culls units with low utilization. “I review the Point of Rental utilization report to identify any slow movers. For example, if we have four units of one item, we might reduce our fleet to two or three, based on utilization,” LeVar says.
The American Rental team is very interested in how the trend toward mini skid steers is driving the rental market. “It used to be the three-point hitch was the most common way to mount an attachment to equipment; now we are seeing more and more demand for mini skid steers with front-mounted attachments. We also see more interest in small articulated wheel loaders. They can get into tight spaces and are very maneuverable. I think they will catch on more in the future,” says Kniep.
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Photos: Keith Brown
This article originally appeared in the July-August 2022 issue of Pr Contractor Rentals magazine. ©2022 Urbain Commmunications LLC. Allrights reserved.
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