Learning lessons from the pandemic

Sep. 27, 2020

At the beginning of the year, most businesses serving the construction industry weren’t thinking about their crisis management plans. In fact, 2020 started off full of promise for Durante Rentals, headquartered in New Rochelle, N.Y.

Equipment and event rental revenues were up in North America and projected by the American Rental Association (ARA) to continue to grow faster than the gross domestic product (GDP).

Durante Rentals, founded in 2009, is one of the fastest growing equipment rental companies in North America, with 10 locations in the Tri-State area. The New York-based chain was planning to expand from its 10 locations in the Tri-State area to New England and throughout the East Coast. And on Feb. 6, Durante Rentals announced its move to its new headquarters in downtown New Rochelle. It was going to be a big year.

That weekend, Anthony Durante, CEO, who co-founded the rental company in 2009, said he headed to The ARA Show™ in Orlando feeling pretty good. The atmosphere at the event, held Feb. 9-12, buzzed with positive electricity, but back home, danger was quietly waiting.

The week after The ARA Show, on Feb. 22, a lawyer from New Rochelle who had not traveled outside the country started showing signs of illness, a minor cough as he later described it to the media. According to news reports, he went to his local synagogue and his firm in Manhattan. His kids went to school, but then he started to feel worse.

The man went to the doctor on Feb. 27, who sent him to the hospital for suspected pneumonia. It would take five more days and a transfer to a different hospital for a test to confirm the patient had the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Durante Rentals opened its new headquarters in February. Just weeks later, New Rochelle emerged as one of the early epicenters of the pandemic in the U.S. Soon, a COVID-19 testing command post was set up at the state health department office at 145 Huguenot St. — in the same building as Durante Rentals’ new headquarters.

As cases continued to grow exponentially over the next few days despite efforts to contain, Durante says he didn’t need to wait for anyone to tell him what to do.

Read the unprecedented steps Durante took in the early days of the pandemic and how he and his company are handling crisis management in the September issue of Rental Management magazine.

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