Jan ’80
The Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., bring a boon to rental businesses located 50 to 100 miles away. There were no rental businesses in Lake Placid and the immediate vicinity.

Jan. ’80
The USA Men’s Hockey team upsets the Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Feb. ’80
A-1 Rental of Fort Worth, Texas, owned by rental veteran Ray O’Neal, moves into 30,000-square-foot building with a 10,800-foot shop area, established in 1956.

Feb. ’80
United Rent-Alls president Robert Feinstein tells the Los Angeles Times his 150 franchise stores are doing about $20 million in annual revenue.

Feb. ’80
Taylor Rental Center proposes ­$1 million advertising campaign, which still has to be approved by the membership.

Feb. ’80
Joe Curren, former rental center owner who ran Western Iowa Tech’s rental program, creates Equipment Rental Institute in Dallas. ERI is created as a diploma-granting organization with day and evening classes in rental-related topics. Curren hopes to train hundreds to work in the industry and develop correspondence courses as well.

Feb. ’80
Mi-T-M Corp., a pressure washer manufacturer, forms pump division.

March ’80
Harold Taylor Plugge, who founded Taylor Rental Corp. in 1962, dies in Springfield, Mass., at age 70. The franchise chain has 625 locations at the time of Plugge’s death, and grossed $22.4 million in revenue in 1979.

Jan., April ’80
ARA holds seminars in Oakland and Chicago respectively called “Computers in the Rental Industry — Friend or Foe.”

May ’80
New Orleans receives 16 inches of rain in two hours. The city’s biggest rental company, American Rent-All, is besieged by requests for pumps. The company also needs the pumps at one of its 12 stores because of flooding, but the company’s new 35,000-square-foot headquarters is not damaged.

May ’80
Mt. St. Helens volcano erupts in southern Washington state, leading to a huge demand for rental equipment from nearby communities.

1980
TheEmpire Strikes Back is released in 1980 and receives mixed reviews from critics. Despite this, it brings in more than $538 million worldwide over the original run and several re-releases, making it the highest grossing film of 1980.

June ’80
RER founder Jim Gartland dies of a heart attack at age 53. Gartland recognized the potential in the rental industry, gave the industry a voice and played a major role in its development and professionalization.

June ’80
Dallas police, with rampant equipment theft in the area, initiate the “Stop and Check” program where they check any construction equipment being transported on Dallas streets and highways after sundown on weekdays, all hours on the weekends, holidays and during inclement weather. The effort contributes to a significant reduction in equipment theft.

Oct. ’80
U.S. Rentals acquires Fullerton Rentals and Ready Mix, bringing the company to 37 branches.

Oct. ’80
A rental equipment repair center opened two years before by a group of seven Taylor Rental Centers is purchased by a third party.

1980
The cordless phone is introduced in 1980.

Nov. ’80
Jim Osbourn, owner of Allied Rent-All, Houston, responds to equipment theft by painting his company’s equipment bright purple. After the four-location company lost $85,000 worth of equipment in 1979 to theft, the company has lost none since.

Nov. ’80
Rental Equipment Dealers Insurance, Lincoln, Neb., documents the deaths of 23 customers from rental equipment in the past seven years.

Dec. ’80
RER devotes its December 1980 issue to the fast-
growing rental segment of aerial work platforms.

Dec. ’80
Taylor Rental Corp. adds a computer system to its franchise program known as TOPIC (Taylor Owners Program of Information and Control). An advisory group of seven Taylor owners assisted in its design, engineered by Taylor vice president and treasurer Jack Shea.

Jan. ’81
San Jacinto College, Houston, offers an equipment rental program as part of its regular curriculum.

Feb. ’81
An RER survey reveals a trend of increasing rental rates between 10 and 15 percent in 1981, although respondents range from not raising rates in three years to a
20-plus percent increase.

Feb. ’81
With record-high interest rates being charged on commercial loans, Lincoln Contractors Supply in West Allis, Mich., borrows more than $100,000 from its employees for 12 percent, 4-percent less than what the bank offered. Owner Alfred Knief says his employees offered more than he needed. Lincoln uses the money to acquire a computerized bookkeeping system and to pay off its bank debt.

1981
World’s first oscillating axles in the industry are offered as an option for boom and scissorlifts.

March ’81
Hertz Equipment Rental & Leasing plans a franchise system, with a goal of 28 franchised rental centers by the end of the year.

March ’81
Laconia, N.H., rental uses solar heating system to heat 8,000-square-foot rental center. $300 pays for heating for the entire New England winter.

1981
In 1981, Walter Cronkite retires as CBS anchor and is replaced by Dan Rather.

June ’81
W.R. Grace acquires multi-branch North Carolina rental company Contractors Service & Rentals for $9 million in Grace common stock from owner Angus Mercer, giving Grace 30 branches. (Grace Equipment president Dugan Hill is pictured.)

June ’81
United Rent-Alls chairman Robert Feinstein resigns. The company’s creditor committee reaches a settlement with creditors, a problem previously described as “a cloud under which everyone was operating.”

July ’81
On July 29, 1981, Prince Charles marries Lady Diana Spencer, while 750 million people watch worldwide.

July ’81
Taylor Rental Corp. lists scaffolding as its most profitable rental item for 1980 and ’81, followed by folding chairs, small tillers, airless paint sprayers and engine lifts.

Aug. ’81
Rand-Air Co., division of Ingersoll Rand names 25-year equipment industry veteran Bob Guiney president.

Sept. ’81
In less than six months, Hertz signs 72 contractor/industrial rental franchises.

Sept. ’81
United Rent-Alls files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, two months after its creditor committee reached agreement on a debt-repayment schedule.

Sept. ’81
Sam’s U-Drive owner Sam Greenberg is elected president of the Los Angeles Department of Airports.

1981
Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman Supreme Court Justice in 1981.

Feb. ’82
The coldest winter of the century stops construction in many areas, but has a stimulating effect on rental of heaters, pumps and drain-cleaning equipment.

Feb. ’82
Former RER editor Richard Steffen is named press secretary for California Gov. Jerry Brown. He continues a monthly column in the magazine.

Feb. ’82
Hertz parent company RCA announces plans to attempt to sell its car rental and equipment rental division.

March ’82
Taylor Rental Corp. suspends its $1 million advertising campaign because of a lack of consensus on how the funds should be spent.

March ’82
An RER survey reveals the majority of general equipment rental centers did between $100,000 and $250,000 in rentals in 1981 and less than $50,000 in sales. However, the survey shows at least 47 rental centers had rental volume of more than $5 million in 1981, and 188 had more than $5 million in sales volume. The survey estimates total rental center volume at about $8 billion, including sales and rentals.

April ’82
One of the industry’s largest independent rental companies, Elmen Rent-All, opens eight new branches and closes four others.

May ’82
Hertz opens the first of its planned franchise rental locations, in Little Rock, Ark. However, high interest rates as well as other issues, make it unlikely the franchise effort will continue.

May ’82
Roger Euliss is named district manager of Florida and southern Georgia for Multiquip.

Aug. ’82
Rental industry software pioneer Jack Shea resigns from Taylor Rental Corp

Sept. ’82
In a disclosure statement to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, United Rent-Alls proposes becoming a publicly held company continuing to operate as a franchiser of rental centers. URA’s member stores dropped from 100 to 65 during the period leading up to its bankruptcy filing.

Oct. ’82
Hertz Equipment Rental-Leasing names Dan Kaplan vice president and general manager.

Jan. ’83
In response to growing interest and involvement in rental on the part of equipment distributors, AED publishes Let’s Talk About Rentals: A Handbook for Sales Representatives.

Jan. ’83
Jack Shea forms Solutions by Computer to offer turnkey software systems for the rental industry. Shea’s partner is another former Taylor Rental Corp. official Thomas VanZandt.

Jan. ’83
Briggs & Stratton Corp. and Lombardini sign a letter of intent to pursue joint marketing of diesel engines in the United States.

Feb. ’83
After years of leadership changes and company re-structuring, the industry’s largest rental company — Hertz Equipment Rental Corp. — now run by new president Dan Kaplan, institutes measures to improve performance. Facilities improvement, analysis of equipment profitability, rate stabilization, redistributed equipment on a national basis, standardized and automated preventive maintenance programs, radio-dispatched service trucks, formal training for mechanics, a national sales effort to reach larger corporations, and the development of a reliable customer contact cycle are just some of Kaplan’s measures.

Feb. ’83
Peter Wacker, leader of the worldwide group of Wacker companies, who founded Wacker in the United States in 1957, dies in Munich at the age of 68. His son Klaus continues to run the U.S. division.

1983
Michael Jackson wins a Grammy for Album of the Year with Thriller in 1983.

March ’83
The Stanley Works, a New Britain, Conn.-based manufacturer of tools and products for the DIY and construction markets acquires Taylor Rental Corp., the rental industry’s largest franchiser. The products of TSW’s Stanley Hydraulic Tool division are widely used in the rental market, but Stanley officials deny buying TRC as a distribution outlet for its product, but to be a profitable business on its own. TRC chairman Harold Plugge Jr. resigns from the board.

May ’83
HERC initiates frequent-renter program by offering car-rental discounts to equipment renters, in some cases offering a week’s free car rental for rental of larger items.

May ’83
Taylor Rental Center in Fitchburg, Mass., develops video rental business, renting game “cartridges” and consoles made by Atari and other manufacturers.

May ’83
John Deere, founder of Deere & Co. as a blacksmith, and five other business leaders are inducted into the Business Hall of Fame.

July ’83
RER publishes Special Events Magazine as an insert, covering the party rental industry. SEM would later become an independent magazine, as RER would focus exclusively on the tool and equipment side of the rental business.

July ’83
Multiquip Inc. forms a subsidiary MQ Power Corp. to market portable welders to construction equipment and welding supply dealers. Multiquip president Irv Levine says the company’s new WhisperWeld line of portable generators “has proven to be the most successful new product ever produced by Multiquip.”

Aug. ’83
Briggs & Stratton creates Industrial Engine division to better serve the growing market for industrial and commercial gasoline engines internationally.

Aug. ’83
Solutions by Computer unveils its new rental counter software system CounterPro, introducing the system at the Texas Rental Association convention, CRA, ARA regionals, with plans to present it at the national ARA convention in 1984.

Sept. ’83
RER visits one of about 700 U-Haul moving centers becoming involved with equipment rentals. Although U-Haul would add more tool and equipment rental locations, the program would never become a widespread success and would eventually be mostly abandoned.

Sept. ’83
RCA says it has backed off from its intention to sell Hertz.

Dec. ’83
David Beatty, credited as co-inventor of frame scaffolding, dies at age 80. He helped begin the scaffolding industry in 1936 and founded Safway Steel Products.

1983
By the end of 1983, almost 3 million of the Cabbage Patch Kids Toys have been adopted but demand has not been met. The Cabbage Patch Kids Toys go on record as the most successful new doll introduction in the history of the toy industry. In December, they are featured on the cover of Newsweek.

Jan. ’84
Hertz president Kaplan articulates a four-part plan to revitalize HERC, covering maintenance, inventory, customer relations and corporate communications. The maintenance program includes factory training, troubleshooting training for managers, a video training library and onsite training, and keeping maintenance as well as revenue records on each piece of equipment. HERC upgrades facilities and spends more than $17 million on fleet in the fourth quarter of ’83.

Jan. ’84
A venture capitalist firm specializing in computer-oriented industries invests $1 million in the development of Solutions by Computer’s CounterPro and OfficePro systems.

Feb.’84
RER co-founder Francis Frank, father-in-law of original publisher Jim Gartland, dies of cancer.

Feb. ’84
Dick Hill, executive director of CRA for 27 years, announces plans to retire at end of 1984.

Feb.’84
Industry pioneer Mitch Hoxie, who started Aero Rentals in Tucson, Ariz., in the early 1940s, dies at age 71.

Feb. ’84
Deere & Co. begins issuing Manufacturers’ Certificates of Origin to guard against theft. Deere encourages other manufacturers to adopt the form, considered impossible to duplicate and is endorsed by the Construction Industry Manufacturers’ Association.

Feb. ’84
United Rent-Alls emerges from bankruptcy proceedings. The franchiser once had more than 500 branches, now has less than 50.

April ’84
An RER study shows 25 percent of responding rental centers use an in-house computer, while an additional 29 percent plan to add one within three years.

June ’84
The mayor of Panama City Beach, Fla., opens A-1 Rent-All Center.

1984
John McEnroe wins his third Wimbledon Champion-ship in 1984, defeating Jimmy Connors.

Oct. ’84
HERC opens its 50th branch, in Shreveport, La.

Nov. ’84
J.I. Case’s parent company reaches agreement to acquire International Harvester for $430 million.