All Star Rents, a family-owned equipment rental company based in Fairfield, Calif., with 13 locations in Northern California and Nevada, has announced Kathryn deVries Mitchell as its new CEO. Mitchell, who has served as chief financial officer since 2008, is a third generation rental owner of the company.
“We’d like to acknowledge the great work done by John Wooten for the past 17 years,” said Mitchell. “He led us out of the recession and established All Star as one of the leaders in the region. I worked with Wooten and my father, Ken DeVries, for the last 10 years and the tough decisions to bring a company of our size out of such a downturn will stay with me the rest of my career.”
In addition to her experience as an accountant at one of the Big Four accounting firms, as well as her 10 years as All Star Rents’ CFO, Mitchell brings the irreplaceable knowledge derived from many years of real-life education from her family. Mitchell’s family imparted the significance of watching the key metrics for their business to keep it profitable, as well as the importance of community and being local, two concepts Mitchell has embraced in her position as CFO. Mitchell also serves as a director on the California Rental Association board, a position held previously by both her father Ken DeVries and her grandfather Ted DeVries. Mitchell is also the head of the Insurance Committee for CRA.
“Our goal for All Star Rents will be to focus on getting back to the basics of rental, which emphasizes being family-owned and local,” Mitchell said. “To accomplish that, we wanted more family involvement. Rental all comes down to three things: good equipment, caring and driven employees, and clean and operational facilities. That’s our focus and how we will take All Star to the next level.”
All Star Rents offers a wide range of equipment ranging from aerial work platforms and material handling equipment to lawn and garden equipment and floorcare. The company was founded by the late Ted DeVries, an inductee in the American Rental Association Hall of Fame, in 1962.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.