Rental Center: 50 years of getting the job done

At Blue Ash Equipment Rental, the machines and the way customers pay have changed but owner Steve Heil still measures success by whether the equipment works dependably and gets the customer’s job done.

Through the last 50 years, Steve Heil has collected a wide variety of vintage tools, of which he proudly displays in his Blue Ash, Ohio showroom.

Steve’s business began in a building next to a gas station in the growing Cincinnati suburb of Blue Ash, Ohio.

That’s owner Steve Heil and his son, Jason Heil in 1981, just six years after opening Blue Ash Equipment Rental.

Today’s fleet is made up primarily of smaller equipment. smaller skid steers as well as stand-on compact track loaders, which are very popular.

Blue Ash Equipment Rental specializes in smaller equipment for primarily for contractors and DIYers.

Demand for mini excavators has replaced requests for compact Terramite loader-backhoes.

The advent of Honda engines has made equipment more reliable and user-friendly.

by Clair D. Urbain

Steve Heil can remember a trencher that took a rope, a stick and a vigorous pull to start; today, he can track a missing mini skid steer across state lines with GPS. Between those two machines lies 50 years of change at Blue Ash Equipment Rental in Blue Ash, Ohio. Yet Heil says the heart of the business remains familiar: a customer has a job to do, and the rental center has to supply a dependable machine and the know-how to use it.

“Essentially it’s the same business as it’s always been,” he says. The tools are better, the paperwork is computerized and customers’ expectations have evolved. But Heil’s practical test for any addition to the fleet is still whether people need it and whether his crew can send it out ready to work.

A business built a parcel at a time
Heil started Blue Ash Equipment Rental in 1976. His grandfather had operated a combined tool rental and hobby shop in Columbus, Ohio, and after his grandfather died, Heil and his wife brought the rental equipment to Blue Ash, which was then a growing Cincinnati suburb. Some of those early tools are still displayed at the store, a tangible link to the business’s beginnings.

Heil first rented a storefront next to a bar in Blue Ash. About a year later, he bought a building on Blue Ash Road, then added onto it in 1980. Expansion came one neighboring property at a time. He bought commercially zoned parcels with houses on them, rented out the buildings and put their backyards to use for equipment storage. Eventually, the houses came down, the yard grew and a new building went up in 1996. The operation now occupies about two acres; Heil still rents out some of the buildings.

The location was deliberate. Blue Ash sits near Interstate 275, giving the store access to growing neighborhoods beyond the beltway as well as established homes closer to Cincinnati. “When you’re renting tools, you’re on the clock and the quicker you are, the better,” Heil says. Today, he prefers to keep most rentals within about 15 miles of the store, where staff can respond if a machine needs attention.

Seven employees, several of them part time, cover the counter, repairs, deliveries and yard work. Jobs overlap. Heil says his mechanic also handles customers and runs the place when he is away. The flexible staffing suits a business that becomes especially busy from spring into November and uses the slower winter months to work through repairs.

Demand changes the fleet
The business has never kept the same equipment mix for long. Heil once rented a full-size backhoe but sold it because of the capital tied up in the machine. Compact Terramite loader-backhoes were strong earners for years until mini excavators took their place. Now mini skid steers lead the fleet, with concrete saws and pressure washers close behind.

“The hottest thing going by far is the mini skid steer,” Heil says. “Contractors use them for a range of jobs, while homeowners discover that they can move material and tackle work that would otherwise mean a great deal of hand labor.” Heil offers hydraulic hammers, posthole diggers, forks and bucket options for the mini skid steers.

He also makes choices about what not to offer: He avoids mini skid steer grapple buckets, even though there is a constant demand for them, but he’s found that they are too easy to misuse and damage. Customers who want to trench can rent a standalone trencher.

One of the clearest changes for do-it-yourself customers is the move to battery-powered tools. Blue Ash has largely replaced its gasoline chainsaws with 16-inch battery models. Heil says renters can take them home and get to work without the starting troubles that often come with two-cycle engines. The change is less about novelty than helping customers finish the job.

The rest of the inventory spans small tools to equipment for industrial work, including air compressors, heaters, hard-surface scissor lifts and towable boom lifts. Heil estimates that the store has more than 3,000 rental items. He does not rely on a formula alone to decide what to buy. “Mostly it’s by answering the phone and looking at the books and you know what’s running,” he says. “I’m here every day; I know what’s renting and what people want.”

Better machines, new headaches
The contrast between the old trencher and today’s compact machines captures the trade-offs Heil has seen. In the early days, the trencher had no recoil starter so Heil or the renter had to pull the engine over using a knotted rope and a stick.

Back in the day, small engines demanded constant attention. He credits the arrival of lighter, easier-starting Honda engines with changing what rental centers could maintain and send out each day. “Today’s modern controls and compact designs are making machines more capable, but electronics can complicate repairs,” he says. For example. Heil and his crew have been working on a compressor that starts and then dies. Presently, they have found they need to replace the wiring harness, which cost about $3,000. His crew is still trying to find the fault.

The counter has changed too. In the early years, the store accepted cash and checks. It eventually adopted credit cards, first with a manual imprint machine, and later computerized transactions. Computers arrived with the new building in the 1990s, although Heil recalls that learning to use them took time for a staff with little keyboard experience. The store now uses JK Data software after an older system became difficult to maintain.

For Heil, GPS has been the most consequential technological addition. After two mini skid steers went missing in an 18-month period, tracking helped locate one near Indianapolis and another in Atlanta; both were recovered. It also reinforced his preference for serving customers close to home. “Technology can protect an investment, but it does not replace the judgment involved in knowing where equipment is going or how it will be used,” he says.

Service that brings customers back
Heil says he does little broad-based advertising. He supports local church festivals, and much of the business comes through word of mouth. Some repeat contractors know the yard well enough to pick up the equipment they need and then tell the counter staff what they have taken. That kind of familiarity has been earned over many visits.

New renters receive more guidance. If a homeowner has never used a mini skid steer, Heil takes the person into the yard, explains the controls and lets the customer try the machine. He demonstrates digging, spreading gravel and grading as the job requires. For a first-time mini excavator renter, his advice is pointed: practice in an open part of the yard, away from the house and the car.

Heil also tries to steer customers away from the wrong tool. When a customer asks for a gasoline concrete saw to cut a basement floor, he warns about engine exhaust in an enclosed space and discusses another way to break out the concrete. Such conversations can take longer than writing a ticket, but they are part of providing professional equipment responsibly.

The same thinking guides his response when equipment fails. For a good customer, Heil says the staff may go out to repair or exchange a machine or allow extra time. “We have to make it right,” he says. “The customer has to be happy. The job has to be successful.” In his view, contractors do not require every rental to be brand new. They expect a machine that looks cared for, is maintained and works when it reaches the job.

Still investing after 50 years
Heil has weathered recessions, winter slowdowns and years when equipment payments were a constant worry. He remembers carrying as much as $25,000 a month in tool payments while building the fleet. The COVID pandemic brought the opposite pressure: Blue Ash stayed open, and Heil describes it as the busiest period he has experienced in his career.

He continues to buy equipment and sees additions to the fleet as necessary to keep the business moving. He also wants to develop the next generation of repair talent. Experienced employees have knowledge to pass on, he says, and a younger mechanic willing to learn could help tackle the work waiting in the shop. The tools themselves will keep changing, along with customer needs and the cost of maintaining a rental fleet.

A half-century after he brought his grandfather’s tools to Blue Ash, Heil still starts with the question that has kept the doors open: “What does this customer need to get the work done?” The answer might be a battery chainsaw instead of a gas model, or a mini skid steer instead of the equipment he rented decades ago. The promise behind the counter is the same: send out a machine that works, show the renter how to use it and stand behind the job.

This article originally appeared in the November-December 2026 issue of Pro Contractor Rentals magazine. ©2026 Urbain Communications LLC. All rights reserved.

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