Starting a new business, welcoming two new additions to the family and establishing a foothold in the world of volunteer leadership — all during a pandemic — is a lot to juggle, but Cynthia Costa, co-owner of Pacific Rental Equipment in Florence, Ore., takes it all in stride.
“It’s been pretty fun,” Costa says in a casual manner of the from-scratch equipment rental enterprise she started with her husband, Nick, in May 2020, during the shaky period of COVID-19’s initial months.
“My husband has always been interested in and intrigued by equipment, and he just said one day early in the pandemic, ‘You know, I always wanted to rent out equipment.’ So, I said we should try it with a mini excavator and see how it goes. We started with just one piece of equipment and slowly started adding to our fleet. It’s just him and I running the show right now. He has a full-time job in sales at a local off-road motorsport dealership and I run the rental business. We have a little storefront,” Costa says.
Pacific Rental Equipment’s primary customers are DIY consumers, followed by commercial clients. The business maintains inventory comprised of general tools along with heavier equipment, including mini excavators, skid steers, dump trailers and mobile elevating work platforms (MEWPs).
At the launch of the business, Costa was pregnant with the couple’s first child and after having the baby, “I went just full on in starting to run the business. I meet customers, rent stuff out, check things in, order equipment, educate customers, do the books — I pretty much do everything,” she says.
Before long, Costa’s second child came along, but that didn’t slow her down in the drive to establish a footprint on the local equipment rental scene.
“Yeah, I have two babies now and at the same time I’m slowly learning new things every day about the business,” she says. “I like helping customers, educating them on equipment and the customer service part of it — interacting with people.”
Like with many equipment rental operations, the pandemic environment turned out to be a boon for business as Pacific Rental Equipment got off the ground. The real challenge in the business’s infancy, Costa says, was that of obtaining business insurance.
“I feel like we started at the right time. We started as appointment-only, so people would call to schedule things out and I would just go and meet them. And we weren’t really affected by the pandemic because people were home more and wanting to work on stuff. We also didn’t have a pre-pandemic track record to compete against. But because we didn’t have any income, pretty much, nobody wanted to insure us. I would say that was the hardest thing, getting started. Everyone wanted proof of income for the business. We ended up finding someone, but it was a lot of calling around until we got a ‘yes,’” Costa says.
Now the business is moving forward to the extent that the Costas have their eyes on possibly expanding their staff beyond just the two of them. “We are looking to add,” Costa says. “Our goal this summer is to hire someone and then get someone to do maintenance on all our equipment. We’ve only bought new equipment since we started, just because we don’t want to run into issues.”
As she works to build her business’s profile locally by being involved in community events hosted in her coastal tourist-destination beach town of Florence, Costa also has an eye on building her profile professionally by getting involved in industry groups and as a volunteer leader.
“We attended the ARA of Oregon Crab Feed in Newport this year and they were looking for volunteers [for the state chapter board of directors], and I raised my hand. I also joined the ARA’s [American Rental Association] Young Professional Network and the Women in Rental,” Costa says.
These activities are all part of Costa’s mission to advance her business and her presence in the industry she and her family have chosen. “I figured it wouldn’t hurt to meet more people who are part of the ARA to get more education and grow my knowledge of the industry,” she says.