After a hiatus in 2020 due to the pandemic, the American Rental Association’s (ARA) annual Leadership Conference — one of ARA’s premier invitation-only conferences — was back as a live event Nov. 18-20. To the industry volunteers who gathered at the conference, it was a welcome return to a forum where they could gain skills and make connections to enhance their service to their respective ARA chapters.
The conference, held at the Loews Chicago O'Hare Hotel in Rosemont, Ill., welcomed more than 50 ARA state and local leaders — many of whom serve as presidents, vice presidents and officers of their state chapters. In addition to these, current and incoming members of the ARA Board of Directors were in attendance to lend their insights on association leadership.
The event opened Thursday, Nov. 18, with a presentation titled “Develop Your Comic Vision,” by Tim Gard. Gard, a member of the Speaker Hall of Fame, delivered laughs through his message that focused on harnessing humor as a skill to prevent or cope with stress.
The conference continued Friday morning with opening comments and association strategic updates from ARA CEO Tony Conant. Attendees then heard from guest speaker Tim Dixon, who launched into the first of four leadership-themed sessions held during the conference.
With a master’s degree in sports psychology and 13 years of coaching experience — including time spent at the U.S. Air Force Academy — Dixon brought with him the credentials to provide a high-energy and challenging, yet good-humored, message that offered a perspective on leadership on a variety of personal and professional levels.
Updates on ARA initiatives — including RentalU, industry economic research and government affairs — also were provided Friday by ARA staff members between Dixon’s sessions, as was a greeting from conference sponsor ARA Insurance.
Friday afternoon concluded with a presentation from special guest Karen Layng, national president of the Girl Scouts of the USA. As a tie-in with ARA’s Women in Rental initiative, Layng discussed the many rental-related professional roles for which involvement with the Girl Scouts prepares girls and encouraged ARA leaders to partner with local Girl Scouts chapters to introduce rental as a viable career path for girls and young women.
Friday evening, all were invited to participate in a networking session that featured a dueling-pianos show starring talent from Chicago’s “Howl at the Moon” venue.
The conference concluded Saturday, Nov. 20, with a final leadership session from Dixon and additional ARA national updates, including a look at the consumer-facing, professionally produced media commercials that are part of ARA’s rental marketing campaign and progress made in the workforce development arena through the ARA Job Board.
“It was fantastic,” says first-time attendee Brian Flinn, manager, MacAllister Rentals, Indianapolis, who serves as ARA of Indiana president.
“Since I took over the president’s seat right after COVID, I haven’t had a chance to attend a true networking event with ARA members — local and national. I wanted to engage and meet with other leaders in ARA and take on that educational piece as well to help me develop,” he says.
He was not disappointed. “The networking was great. I got to hear from others about industry challenges that relate to all rental segments. That is nice to know that I am not on this boat by myself,” he says.
The messages from the presenters were insightful too. “From Tim Gard’s message about keeping humor in the workplace to the self-reflection of what Tim Dixon brought up about how you can be a better manager and how to look beyond those challenges and lead change — they brought a lot of good messages that helped me self-reflect on how I manage. Sometimes you get lost a little bit and sometimes need some direction,” Flinn says.
One of those leadership aspects Dixon addressed that really resonated with Flinn was “being truly active in the conversation,” he says. “Many times someone will come to my office or I will be out walking and someone will ask me a question or engage me in a decision. When that happens, sometimes I don’t hear their side of the story. I will make a decision and move on. Being present in every conversation is what I have to do. Just because I am helping someone make a decision doesn’t mean I actually taught them why I made that decision. I started reflecting on how do I develop the people under me to be the next leader or surpass me?”
The applications are numerous. “At work it can help me build bench strength. We are always looking for the next person to step up, the next person to be a manager and/or the next person to be a lead. As I can help build people up in my business, it can help build that bench strength the business needs to grow. As a state chapter leader, it is similar. Who is the young professional who is joining the board or becoming an active member and influencing others? If we are not looking to continue to develop or get out of the way of the young leaders, we might be holding back the company, state chapter or the association,” Flinn says.
Flinn plans to share what he learned at the conference with the other members of his board. “This will be part of the conversation. I have to make sure we involve more board members and be more active in the Young Professional Network as a way to build the leaders the industry needs. I also will encourage other board members to take advantage of these opportunities. It can help them personally and professionally,” he says.
Fellow first-time conference attendee Sean Williams, president, First Place Rental, Oswego, Ill., who serves as the ARA of Illinois vice president, had a similar reaction.
“I met a lot of really awesome and very smart people. It was great to spend a couple days with like-minded people. It helped re-energize and refocus me,” he says.
Like Flinn, Williams got a lot out of the featured presenters. “Tim Gard was hilarious. His message was good as well, using comedy as a way to really lighten the mood and to see things from a different perspective. I think it is great and I think more people should be that way. He was an all-around funny guy. Tim Dixon really resonated with me. He is a sports guy. So am I. He focused on different parts of leadership — one was creating a gap from where you are to where you want to be and looking at the steps you need to take to get there. He got everyone involved. He helped motivate everyone, which was great,” he says.
The conference gave Williams a “new sense of purpose for my position with the ARA of Illinois. It really helped me see that I need to take the time and reach out to the new people who join or potential rental operations that aren’t members to share what they are missing out on if they are not part of ARA. I am really glad I had the opportunity to go. It was very impactful and offered me a renewed sense of mission and purpose for my role here at work and on the state board,” he says.
John Jeanguenat, president, RentalMax, Carol Stream, Ill., and ARA Equipment Rental Shared Interest Group co-chair, also received a lot of value from the conference.
“Tim Gard was very entertaining. He did a great job of giving examples of managing the way you respond to certain situations. I think that has been really important for all of us in the last year and a half because the world is changing so quickly and is a lot more unpredictable than it ever has been from a health and safety standpoint, which is kind of a foundational part of all of our lives,” he says.
A key takeaway from Tim Dixon’s sessions was “just taking a step back from the day-to-day to think about the way that we’re leading, what’s most important and the way we approach leadership within our organizations. That starts with the way that we think about leadership and prioritize certain parts of it,” Jeanguenat says.