Washington Air Compressor Rental Co. might be the oldest rental company in the world still doing business under its original name. If there's an older North American rental company, not only doing business under its original name but owned by the same family, the four Stecklein brothers who run it now don't know about it.

The company was founded by the Stecklein's grandfather Albert Stecklein 77 years ago in 1931. But being around a long time does not mean being set in its ways. On the contrary, Washington Air Compressor, as it is popularly known, is in the process of re-inventing itself significantly and pushing hard towards growth and expansion even during an economic downturn, a tendency that might be part of its DNA since the company was founded in the middle of the Great Depression.

Washington Air Compressor has long been multi-faceted. While the company's emphasis is on general construction rentals, it is also a dealer for several dozen lines and most recently has added a Gehl dealership affiliation in Maryland and northern Virginia, which the company expects will bring growth opportunities. Also Washington Air Compressor, very unique to the North American rental industry, has its own operator division, with trained operators available to do a wide variety of construction, concrete-cutting and drilling jobs.

Washington Air Compressor is headquartered in Hyattsville, Md., a northern suburb of Washington D.C. Its five branches form a kind of loop around the burgeoning D.C. market. Its Chantilly, Va., branch is strategically placed in fast-growing Northern Virginia. The company is still doing business in the inner city of Washington with a facility on 4th Street N.E., near where the company was founded and not far from government buildings and all that makes the capital area vibrant and historic. It also has branches in outlying Rockville and Frederick, Md.

The company's age is one of its strengths. Just like independent rental companies in virtually all major metropolitan areas, the locally owned and operated Washington Air Compressor is competing against the major national rental companies, and long-standing relationships enhance its reputation on a local and regional level. Many local construction companies have a long history of doing business with Washington Air Compressor, and many of those companies have people who recall doing business with founder Albert Sr., who died in 1981.

Albert Jr., now in his mid-70s, is still involved in the company as president, although it has been quite a few years since he regularly worked in the company's office. However, he still regularly reads construction reports and as he drives around the D.C. area, he regularly notices sites where a job will soon begin and doesn't hesitate to communicate with Washington Air staff. When he sees work being done on a building, he often remembers when equipment from Washington Air helped build that building. And if he sees a competitor's equipment on the site of a building that Washington Air helped build, he doesn't hesitate to pick up the phone.

“He still knows every jobsite that's being started, and every contractor on every jobsite,” says Danny Bowling who joined Washington Air a year ago as general manager of operations and vice president of new equipment sales. “If he's driving down the road and sees a sign that says there's going to be something here in 2015, he's on the phone wanting to know if we're getting equipment ready for that job.”

“Or if they're re-doing a building, or putting something up right next to one that's been sitting there for 20 years, he'll remember the job before and he'll call and tell us that 30 years ago they hit rock on that site right next door, and exactly where it was,” adds Brian Stecklein, now the company's vice president of operations.

Albert Stecklein Sr. began Washington Air Compressor Rental Co. in 1931, renting truck-mounted air compressors. Like many of the early rental companies, the rental portion of the business was almost an accident. He owned and operated an automobile repair garage, and when he had some available space, he leased it to a Pennsylvania contractor to store a pair of Schramm air compressors. When the contractor finished the government project, he couldn't pay his space rental fees so he left the compressors in lieu of the rent.

A few of Stecklein's customers had inquired about using the air compressors, so he decided to rent them as a side business. Because the large air compressors were heavy to transport, Stecklein figured out a way to mount them on used Coca-Cola trucks (both the air compressors and trucks were red, Stecklein's favorite color), thus developing some of the earliest truck-mounted air compressors. Stecklein rented them with operators and eventually grew the fleet to about 70 trucks with air compressors.

While Stecklein's achievement in building a successful rental company in the middle of the Great Depression was significant in retrospect, even greater may be the development of that truck-mounted air compressor. Stecklein, essentially a mechanic with an eighth-grade education, didn't set out to be an inventor any more than he had the idea of starting an equipment rental business, a concept virtually unknown at the time. But, necessity being the mother of invention, he needed to make a living during a difficult time and needed a way to transport the large red air compressors, so he used his mechanical aptitude to figure out a way to attach the units to trucks.

“He fabricated them, he fixed them, and he grew the business,” says Steve Stecklein, now Washington Air's executive vice president and CEO. “He had a painter who hand-painted every word and every phone number on the vehicles and the compressors. He created the whole package.” Steve has correspondence between his grandfather and Schramm, recommending modifications and playing a major role in the ongoing design of the compressors.

By 1940, Stecklein had nine compressor trucks and employed one person in the office, one in the shop and nine or 10 operators. Stecklein devoted himself to making collections and visiting potential customers to promote the service. He also rented jack-hammers, rock drills, tampers, saws and pumps. In its peak, the company had more than 30 truck-mounted units, and a wide variety of breakers and other air tools.

For years, Washington Air Compressor essentially rented anything related to air — air hammers and air pumps, air-powered breakers. “In later years, as demands changed, equipment became more hydraulic, so we began picking up different lines,” says Kevin Stecklein, corporate accounts manager. Since air compressors and air equipment are used a great deal in foundation work, Washington Air Compressor got involved in earthmoving equipment such as skid-steer loaders and mini-excavators, and, eventually, larger earthmoving units, which became more possible for the company once it moved its headquarters outside the inner city area and had more available space.

Washington Air Compressor now carries a wide variety of construction-oriented inventory including telehandlers up to 56 feet, straight-mast forklifts, aerial work platforms up to 130 feet, concrete equipment, demolition hammers, lighting equipment, compaction equipment, saws, surface-preparation equipment, sandblasting equipment, generators up to 600 kVa, pumps, log splitters and more.

While the company uses the motto “much more than air compressors” to avoid being limited by its long-standing name, the company has a large fleet of air compressors that range in size up to 1,600 cfm.