One achievement that is extremely significant is in the area of fleet management. We have implemented a sea change in the way our branches manage the rental fleet — instead of each branch manager having his or her own fleet, there is now a strong financial incentive for our branch managers to share equipment among branches. In effect, we have torn down the walls that impeded our fleet from being utilized most efficiently.

We have also significantly increased our fleet transfers this year compared with 2007, both through the physical redeployment of units to other markets, and by selling fleet in one region and investing the replacement capex elsewhere. Right now the bulk of sharing and transfers take place within a district, but the process is getting increasingly fluid. An extreme example of this was Hurricane Ike in September, where we were a first responder. We transferred 70 truckloads of fleet from 21 states and one Canadian province in the first week after landfall, and deployed it in the Gulf.

Has sharing of equipment between branches been a major source of savings for you?

I would characterize it as being driven by our customers — our fleet goes where our customers need it the most. So yes, there is an economic component but we also transfer fleet to support large project starts, disaster recovery efforts, seasonal shifts, and for many other reasons. In Canada, for example, where the current construction economy is stronger than in the U.S., fleet transfers and sharing are up because demand is up, not down.

What have been stronger and weaker markets in the U.S.?

It's no secret that the Southeastern and Southwestern U.S. have been softer since 2007, and in response we have re-deployed assets out of those markets to other markets. Texas has always been a good market for us, the Gulf area, with a lot of energy-related business, has been very good. To a large degree, the mid-Atlantic states have been stable and we continue to see opportunities there. There are pockets within every area that have been affected, but I would say the Gulf and Rocky Mountains all the way up through Canada and Canada in general, have remained relatively strong.

It's a very mixed bag. We didn't allocate any growth capital to our fleet this year. Instead, we de-fleeted in some areas and re-deployed that capital, and we're actually shifting our fleet more fluidly between our branches and districts. We're transferring fleet at a much more rapid pace than we've done in the past.