In 2017, Ben Blood joined the newly formed Big L Rentals in Garden City, Kan., as vice president. It was neither his nor Big L’s first stint in rental. Big L, for which Blood had worked since he was in high school in 2008, had been a growing, independently owned rental business in the community when, in 2012, it was acquired by nationwide entities the Volvo Group and BlueLine Rental.
Blood then took a break from rental and although he was out of the game, he was observing from the outside. That is when he decided that should the day ever come when got back involved in an equipment rental business, he would need the kind of resources that are provided by the American Rental Association (ARA).
“After the transaction with the Volvo Group, we took five years off, sat back and watched how these progressive, national competitors were operating. When we made the decision to jump back into the rental business in 2017, ARA was front of mind because we really wanted a place to network with other rental operators, share ideas and get feedback,” he says.
Blood singles out ARA’s legal assistance partnership with James Waite, Esq., as particularly helpful when Big L Rentals was relaunching.
“We were starting up fresh and needed a rental contract,” he says. “ARA has an incredible program there with a great contract lawyer in James Waite. Something that seems like such a small part of the program was, in all honesty, a giant piece that we needed to deal with when we were starting up. It ended up being two phone calls and it was done. We had it and we were ready to go to work. That was a huge piece.”
The networking benefit provided by The ARA Show™ and other member gatherings also appealed to Blood.
“Being able to bounce ideas off each other and get feedback has been invaluable,” Blood says. “Being in a rural area like we are, even manufacturers that we buy a lot from we may only see once a year. We don't have a sales rep that lives down the street from us. We don't get tons of feedback, so being able to go to the show, have all these manufacturers in one place and to be involved in a community is beneficial.”
The newly launched ARA Certified programs focusing on mobile elevating work platforms (MEWPs) and more also have Blood excited.
“ARA has had the event rental piece for a long time and now we're excited about this equipment training,” he says, adding that he appreciates “anything that we can do to make our staff more qualified. We have an incredible staff that I would put up against anybody’s, but anything we can do to ensure that they have the resources they need is a great thing. And the next step [after the MEWP training] is an operator training, which is another piece we're excited about. That's a service we offer now but being able to have outside curriculum and have an extra resource, for a small independent like us, is a huge benefit.”
“There's a ton of different ARA programs that are beneficial to us, but at the end of the day, it comes down to being a part of a network of like-minded people who see the same challenges that we do. Like the ARA Equipment Facebook group that was introduced during the pandemic, where people were sharing ideas, in-store policies about how they handle disinfectant and things. To a small company like us, that is invaluable. It's not information we can gather. ARA has been a huge benefit to us over the years,” Blood says.