Rental: How did you first get your start in the rental industry?
Brian Walter: I found myself in the rental business after 10-plus years of struggling to try to survive in the lumber yard business. The lumber business is kind of like the grocery business; you don’t see many family-owned grocery businesses anymore. My prediction is family-owned lumber yards without a profitable niche, like rental, will also disappear.
Rental: Can you give us some insight on your current company?
Walter: I began the rental company essentially out of necessity. They say necessity is the mother of all invention, and I would say that’s true. Once I got involved in rental, I fell almost instantly in love with the business model.
When we first started, our lumber sales were 100 percent of our income, and rental was 0 percent. Over what is now 14 years later, rental is approaching 70 percent of our total sales. Even now, we are actively working at increasing rental and further reducing our lumber offering.
When it comes to our rental offering, we focus strictly on construction equipment rental. We have a second location in El Reno, Okla., which is rental only, no lumber, and we have a 10-year plan for a third rental-only location in Oklahoma City.
Rental: What have been some of the challenges and successes you’ve had over the years you've been in business?
Walter: The biggest challenge has been surviving. I started from scratch back in 1995 in a business model (lumber) that considered a 3 percent net profit to be average. To be honest, we never managed to even make that prior to getting into rental, despite working 16-hour days regularly.
Our sales were lackluster, so we became experts at delivering sheetrock for new homes. It was common for me to work in the retail lumberyard from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., grab a pizza at the convenience store and then me and a couple of high school boys would go stock sheetrock into new homes until 9 p.m. We often worked by the light of a Coleman lantern suspended from the ceiling joists of the recently framed home.
Being in business is fulfilling a dream born when my father died when I was just 10, resulting in our family business closing. I always tell people if I had not really, really, really wanted to make it, I wouldn’t have.
Rental: What's the best advice you've ever received?
Walter: The best advice I ever got was to join a peer advisory group. I was near bankruptcy when my banker suggested I join a peer group. It was through the counsel I received in that group, and I believe God’s divine guidance, that I ended up in the rental business.
Rental: You started a nonprofit organization to incentivize members of Congress to pass the bipartisan No Budget, No Pay Act. Can you tell me more about that?
Walter: I felt called to start the nonprofit Unity above Self in America (UaSiA). It’s a long story; I am literally 29 chapters into a book on my experience so far, but I will try my best to keep this short.
Out of fear of out-of-control federal spending, I decided to do something. I really can’t explain what happened next, but I went from a political nobody to a personal friend of the former U.S. Senator of Oklahoma, Dr. Tom Coburn.
Dr. Coburn was a legend in the U.S. Senate due to his straight talk and willingness to fight even his own party members. I attempted to help him in his passion to advance an effort called Convention of the States (COS).
Eighteen months later over lunch, Dr. Coburn told me he was dying of prostate cancer and that I needed to take the lead. So, I’m championing a nonpartisan bill called the “No Budget, No Pay” act.
Dr. Coburn gave the first $1,000 donation to our nonprofit and helped me with donations and advice until his death in 2020. The bill is very short and bipartisan and is co-authored by Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). The bill simply says Congress will pass a budget by Oct. 1 of each year, like they’re supposed to, or they will begin to go without pay until they do, with no provision for retroactive pay.
