Deanna Pahl, manager, K-T Equipment Rental, Findlay, Ohio, was recently elected to serve on the ARA of Ohio board.
Pahl is excited to take on this new role. “I am very thankful for being elected to the board. I look forward to it,” she says.
Her route to the equipment rental industry was rather circuitous. “I grew up on our family’s farm. All of us kids worked on the farm, running tractors and such, so I was very familiar with a lot of the equipment. However, I became a CPA [certified public accountant]. I was working at a CPA firm and K-T Equipment Rental was one of my clients,” she says.
One thing led to another and since 2003 she has served in her current role at K-T Equipment Rental, primarily a construction and general tool rental operation. “I am responsible for all aspects of the operation, including human resources, payroll, tax return preparation, budgets, fleet management, purchasing and insurance,” Pahl says. “This job has allowed me to use my financial background in a more challenging, active way. I am not really a full-time-desk-kind-of-person.”
Moving into rental was “quite a big learning curve,” Pahl admits. “There were things I wasn’t familiar with, like scaffolding and tool-and-die. Plus, it was challenging when you have so many different terms for the same thing, but I have learned to speak the language that people use when they come to the counter. I learned by trial and error and also had great mentors helping me.”
Now she can’t imagine working anywhere else. “I love it. Every day can be the same, but every transaction can be different. I truly enjoy helping people get their jobs done and the satisfaction of seeing them succeed,” Pahl says.
Wanting to move to another level in her career, she decided to run for a seat on the ARA of Ohio board. “I felt like I could use my experiences and thought it would be a new way to meet people and help everyone come together. There are new challenges and I think we all need to come back together to work on those issues. I also felt that being on the board would help me meet people and maybe foster more relationships. Sometimes you can get in a box and do the same things every day when in times like this you should be reaching out and trying to come together and learn from others,” Pahl says.
She says her strong financial background should be an asset to the board as well as her perspective. “I face our customers every day. I don’t sit back in the office. I am out front and help solve problems, so I understand the experiences of our customers. I think I have learned from that,” Pahl says.
Pahl is ready to bring her experiences and background to the table, network with other rental operators and learn about the issues they are facing as well as the others affecting the industry, and then do her best to make a positive impact. “I hope to make a difference, if I can,” she says.