After more than three decades of service to contractors and homeowners throughout Northern New Jersey, Sussex County Rental Center, Andover, N.J., is looking to the future with new ownership and a fresh take on key areas of its operation.
As he reflects on the company’s story, Mike Naomi, a 23-year veteran of Sussex County Rental Center who serves as shop manager and mechanic, remarks that “all facets have been growing.”
“The owner who I went to work for in 1998, Ken Cope, established the company in 1987 with the help of his sons — primarily Eric Cope, who still works here today. They originated a mile up the road, north on
206, from where we are located now. It started in half of a commercial building — maybe 2,000 sq. ft., including the basement and the main showroom and shop. Now, we’re somewhere around five to six times that inside as well as the outside stockade area,” Naomi says.
For most of its history, Sussex County Rental Center has offered a blend of equipment and party rentals. While the equipment side always has been a major priority, the party and event focus has gained ground as that segment of the industry has evolved in recent years.
“Both in the investment in inventory as well as the business we would see annually, our concentration has been on equipment — probably somewhere around 75 percent equipment and 25 percent party and event but, proportionately, the party side has been growing more so than the equipment,” Naomi says.
This trajectory, of course, was shaken up by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
“Last year, events were all but gone except for some of the outdoor seating and restaurants in the area. This year, they’ve bounced back firmly, which is great. We’re getting at or beyond some of our year-to-date numbers for pre-COVID times. We did see a huge surge in equipment during the COVID shutdown. Then, as things started to open up, that seems to have slowed down. People now have the ability to go out to eat, go on vacation and enjoy doing things that they weren’t able to do in the past year,” Naomi says.
While there has been a noticeable pullback on the homeowner/DIY rental side, Naomi has reason to believe their equipment sector will even out as 2021 progresses. “A lot of our contractor customers, who are our heaviest hitters, are all very busy. The phone might not be ringing as much as it was three months ago, but we are confident the work will remain steady through the winter,” he says.
While Sussex County Rental Center’s rental activity rebalances as society emerges from the pandemic, the company is developing new, pragmatic solutions to complicated business issues. One of these is the industrywide labor shortage problem.
“A higher salary helps to bring people in, but you also have to match what you expect of the employee with what they are looking for,” Naomi says. “A better schedule or particular aspect of their working day can mean as much as the amount of money you’re paying them. On the events side of things — cleaning, prep and things like that — that might mean giving the employee a schedule that gets them out at 3 p.m. and a regular weekend off. Some seem to want that more than a higher wage. Others are out to make as much money as they can and don’t mind staying late as long as the overtime is available. So, we tailor these expectations to keep the frustration level down without having to simply throw money at them all the time.”
Futilely throwing money at labor also has been a factor in another major shift made recently by Sussex County Rental Center, which is its move to become leaner by phasing out distributorship and service capacities for major equipment brands. The change is significant because it’s an arm of the business that had been in place from the company’s infancy.
“For years — since the time Ken started the business in ’87 — we were a power equipment dealer in some capacity, most recently for Husqvarna and RedMax equipment. But we ended up dissolving that relationship. Labor costs in our shop had gotten to a point where it was impossible to compete for prices against online vendors and anywhere you can buy similar equipment. And the repair dollars that we were seeing out of the shop just could not keep up with the costs of labor. So, in the last year we started to taper off, help our last few customers on the service end and no longer handle any kind of outside repair, which is a departure because we’d done that since the start. Having done that, we have seen margins increase, so it seems to have been the right decision,” Naomi says.
Another big move for Sussex County Rental Services is its change in ownership in 2021 after 34 years under the guidance of the Cope family.
“Drew Kowalski is the new owner as of the first of June,” Naomi says. “He is a very hard worker, picks up everything really quick and puts his nose to the grindstone to be here and get things done. Over the years that I’ve worked here — from Ken Cope and then, after his passing, his son, Eric, to Drew now — we’ve been fortunate to have three really dedicated, intelligent and generous guys own the business.”
Thirty-four years on, Sussex County Rental Center has developed to the point where giving back to the industry has become important to its people. Brittany Rubino, office manager/party planning specialist for the company, joined the ARA of New Jersey board of directors in 2020 and currently serves as the chapter’s treasurer. Rubino says she answered the call to leadership “to develop and strengthen our business network within the rental community that includes managers, tent installers, front counter personnel, industry professionals, drivers, mechanics and more.”
How do you sum up three-plus decades of service, brand-new ownership, a forward-looking approach to employee recruitment, streamlined professional services and industry leadership engagement? Naomi’s perspective on it all is simple: “We’re trying to keep everyone happy so the ball keeps rolling.”