Business Info Analysis
December Surprises Kick Off 2012
It was rather matter of fact, a press release in my e-mail inbox announcing the biggest transaction in equipment rental industry history, the industry's...
Rental Companies Learning Lessons in a Changing Landscape
After several painful years in the rental industry, 2011 was a welcome return to improved business, according to most rental companies, although growth...
Butter Your Bread with New Markets
Sometimes the bread and butter of a rental business can go stale. Typically strong markets such as commercial and residential construction can weaken...
Back to the Big Easy
The widespread devastation and dramatic impact of Hurricane Katrina on the city of New Orleans, La., in August 2005 left such a mark that, ultimately,...
Innovating in the Right Direction
This is our annual Innovative Products Award issue and it's always special to the RER staff and the judges who took the time to participate. The RER staff...
Harnessing Hydrogen
The RER Innovative Product Award was established in 2003 to honor excellence in new product development in the equipment rental industry. This year the...
Discovering New Profit Makers
What kinds of changes, developments and trends have you seen in the past year in concrete equipment and what do you expect to see in the coming year?...
Rental Continues Upward Climb
Baird, in partnership with RER, has published the results of its third-quarter 2011 survey of the rental equipment industry, which showed rental revenue...
Energy: the Next Rental Frontier?
Energy is the essence, the lifeblood we cannot live without. Other than food and water, nothing is more essential to human existence, and without it,...
Energy: the Next Rental Frontier?
Energy is the essence, the lifeblood we cannot live without. Other than food and water, nothing is more essential to human existence, and without it,...
Jobs and Jobs
I always was inspired by Steve Jobs. In a way, that's a bit weird. I'm not much of a technology guy. I haven't used any recent Apple innovations. I used...
Interview with Pat Olney: Investing in Growth
Last month RER visited Volvo Construction Equipment's Shippensburg, Pa., plant, where Volvo is investing $100 million on a 200,000-square-foot expansion...
Survey Says? Revenue Growth to Continue
Baird, in partnership with RER, has published the results of its second-quarter 2011 survey of the rental equipment industry, which showed a 9.3-percent...
Heavy Rental, Bare or Operated
When a 10-mile stretch of the 405 freeway on the west side of Los Angeles known as the busiest freeway in the United States was to be shut down for nearly...
Just Be a Builder
I didn't know my paternal grandfather very well. He died when I was a small boy and I never really knew the optimistic, vigorous man my dad and his brother...
A Touchdown for Hardware Rentals
Back in the 1990s, when some hardware stores began dabbling in rental, a lot of people on the strictly rental side took positions ranging from dismissal...
Don't Jump Out the Window Yet
It was 1929. Twelve million people were out of work; 12,000 people became unemployed every day; 20,000 companies had gone bankrupt; 1,616 banks went bankrupt...
Will Funds Flow?
With the most recent threat to the economic recovery barely in the rearview thanks to the United States' debt ceiling crisis early this month, the state...
Use Tier 4 to Your Advantage
THE PARTICIPANTS: John Bartz, director, product assurance & regulations, Volvo Construction Equipment North America; Curtis Goettel, marketing manager,...
Straining the Global Supply Chain
Steve Soares is breaking a sweat. Yes, it's a hot day in northern California, but more than that Soares, owner of Livermore, Calif.-based manufacturers'...
Supply Chain Strains and Thanks for the Jump-Start
It wasn't a total shock when I read earlier this month that Bridgestone raised its prices in the U.S. and Canada on its Bridgestone and Firestone brand...
M&A is On the Rise
A sustained recovery in rental equipment operating trends should support merger and acquisition activity, as the current environment appears well suited...
Beating the Drum for Infrastructure
I was reading an interesting article in Bloomberg Businessweek this week on fixing America's economy, and the author brought up some interesting concepts...
Out of the Ashes
The year 2010, going into 2011 was the beginning of a comeback for the RER 100 and the rental industry. As explained in the RER 100 lead story on page...
The Social Network
When the World Wide Web was new in 1991, businesses around the globe started to use its infinite scope and size to promote themselves. As with any new...
