Vacuum Truck Rentals is the United States’ largest commercial truck rental company of its kind. The business primarily serves contractors with their own fleets who often order numerous vacuum trucks designed for particular purposes, such as industrial cleanup jobs. The organization was founded in 1977 by Payton Lockey and B.T. Steadman.
NAS recently met with Bill Gaff, VP of Sales and Marketing, who has been with Vacuum Truck Rentals (VTR) for 14 years. When Bill came aboard, the company had 5 offices and 150 trucks. They just opened a new location in Columbia, South Carolina about 6 months ago, and this month, the booming enterprise is opening its 18th branch in Oklahoma City.
Inception of the Vacuum Truck Rentals Enterprise
Before they took over the world of industrial vacuum truck rental, Steadman was in real estate and Lockey worked in an archery store. They talked over lunch one day about starting a business. Lockey, who holds a degree in geology, was referred by Steadman to an environmental consulting group sharing office space with his firm.
Payton became involved in environmental cleanup projects and soon discovered a lack of the kind of vacuum equipment needed for a remediation project. He and B.T. then followed through on their earlier business startup discussion, launched VTR, and began opening up an office per year.
Bill Gaff was previously the president of the Vactor Manufacturing company as well as President of the Air and Water Group of Federal Signal. He started in the Sales and Marketing group there: I took a job there straight out of college as a demo operator for two years. His first trip out of the country was to a steel mill in Wuhan, China for training and made 27 trips to China during 29 years with Vactor.
Asked if VTR had someone in his current role before him, he said they didn’t and recalls the transition with amusement: Peyton and I knew each other long before I joined the company. He told me four years before I started that I would eventually come to work here. He said they had my skills included in their Needs Analysis. His prediction turned out to be right, and I’m going into my 15th year with the business.
Vacuum Truck Inventory and Rental Operations
We currently have close to 1,000 trucks in our rental fleet. We rent road tractors, video inspection vehicles, sewer cleaners, hydro-excavation trucks, and many types of vacuum trucks for a wide variety of applications. Every rental location has a shop with full-time mechanics to maintain our own fleet as well as provide parts and service for our customers.
There’s a sphere of influence on rental activity that we gain around the location of each rental outlet. People won’t drive 700 to 800 miles to get a truck. So, that opens up opportunities for us to increase our service for the area. Our rental fleet moves all over the place daily. Someone may need 30 to 50 trucks here or there. Many of our industrial customers get into plant shutdown situations that may require over 100 trucks. We move assets between locations all the time to put them wherever they’re best utilized.
Probably about 75% of our customers are industrial contractors. Most of the industrial plant work our trucks are used for is done by contractors who rent them for big cleanup jobs. The biggest contractors have the biggest fleets, but they’re not going to move 50 trucks around for a temporary job. Most of their work does not involve a lot of daily applications for major cleanups. They would buy the trucks if they needed them daily.
We supply trucks for work in telecom and other utility businesses. There are a lot of truck rental needs we fulfill for micro-tunneling, pipeline work, etc. We’re currently renting trucks for hydro-excavation for the pipeline.
Equipment Vendor Management at VTR
What makes a good truck for a truck owner and operator isn’t necessarily what is best for a truck rental business. An independent owner/operator may want a lot of things that result in a high level of added complexity, whereas we look for something a user can get in and use easily.
We usually buy from a manufacturer, not a dealer, because of the volume of trucks we’re buying every year. We try to keep a common vendor for each kind of rental truck product we offer, and we want to have a vendor relationship that we’re going to keep long-term. So, we do a background examination of each new prospective vendor. For example, we did a background on ODRA before recently adding them as a supplier.
Vacuum Truck Rentals Adds ODRA Line
We get requests periodically for sweepers. In pavement sweepers, we look for simplicity and ease of maintenance. We look at its lifecycle, periodic maintenance requirements, etc. And, of course, we look for equipment that will do a great job. In milling and paving debris cleanup, for example, milling debris is very aggressive material, so you need a very good street sweeper for that type of cleanup. ODRAs do a great job for milling.
We’ve had a handful of vacuum and regenerative sweepers. We typically look at used equipment for this use. We’ve never bought new ones to put in the rental fleet. We were never really comfortable with investing in them for various reasons. But ODRA solves those problems.
They are non-CDL, they’re high-dump, and they’re comparatively very simple to operate. They’re competitively priced, and the only big-dollar expense on ODRAs for parts that you have to change is the elevator. We performed a lifecycle costing analysis, and the ODRA has exceeded our expectations on that point.
We’ve talked to a number of customers that use ODRAs who say they will buy more of them soon. I knew some Elgin dealers that had 20 to 30 of them in their rental fleet. And, the deliveries from ODRA are still reasonable. From at least one sweeper truck manufacturer we’re familiar with, it can take two years to get it after your order. So, we’re happy to add the new ODRAs.
Expansion Plans for Vacuum Truck Rental
Our last new office opening was in Oklahoma City, and we’ll continue westward expansion. I think you can’t open a bunch of new locations in one year and do it right. On top of annual purchasing, you have to add 30 to 50 trucks per year for expansion.
When we add to our product offering, we like to add equipment that many of our customers already have an application for. ODRA was a perfect example of people asking for products we didn’t have. Our plan now is to expand the ODRA mechanical sweeper to more of our locations.
[VTR has also recently expanded its upper management team. The manager of strategic accounts was just promoted to the VP of Strategic Sales, and the company has also recently made two promotions from local to regional management positions. Bill notes that one of the advancements is at least partly for the purpose of grooming his replacement. He said he plans to retire within the next 2 to 3 years. He had started retiring during COVID but delayed it until a better time for it.]
Vehicle Parts, Repairs, and Maintenance at VTR
Vacuum Truck Rentals is the largest distributor of vacuum hoses for industrial services in the United States. The company also provides a wide range of hoses, nozzles, fittings, pumps, blowers, hydraulic components, and other parts for industrial and environmental services. That includes accessories for hydro-excavation, sewer cleaning, and custom accessories for various needs.
We are a high consumer of the parts for trucks in our fleet. Our purchasing manager at the Jackson office works to ensure we receive the best possible pricing based on our buying volume. You have to stay on the front end of maintenance and repairs. Every truck goes through a video inspection before and after each rental. They’re all well maintained.
We have to follow the regulations. So, we have GPS in all the rental trucks, to see how many hours or miles since a truck was last serviced and other essential information. To maintain electronic logs, we have to have ports in all the rental trucks for laptops. We really have to stay on top of that.
There are also a lot of market-specific applications we need to provide. For example, some trucks need grounding units to eliminate static charge. Others are in manufacturing plants that are diesel engine runaway environments (high VOCs), so we have to outfit trucks with automatic shutoff systems to help prevent incidents.
Building the Vacuum Truck Rentals Brand
All the management team understands that we’re in a service business. When a contractor asks us for something, we know there are multiple options for them to rent. We’re the largest because we provide the best service. We answer the phone when people call and provide the help they need when they need it.
Typically, when they call they have a problem they need to have solved. We probably react better and do a better job of service overall than the customer has experienced in the past. When repairs need to be done, we treat our customers the way we want to be treated. Peyton and B.T. came from the bottom too, so they understand what it is for people to do the kinds of work our trucks are used for, and they respect that.
Advice for Sweeper Equipment Manufacturers from Bill Gaff, Vacuum Truck Rentals
I used to be on the manufacturing side and now am on the rental side. I think some manufacturers lose sight of what the trucks are used for and make them too complicated. It can get ridiculous. I think it’s predictable that the simpler designs will increase market share over the coming years.
And, the emissions considerations are key to reducing the amount of upfront and backend costs that vacuum truck buyers must bear. The manufacturing plants and renters that use the trucks don’t want to pay 40% higher prices for a lot of extras that they don’t need. The value proposition you offer should account for the real necessities, though they are costly, and still allow you and your customer to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship.
For more information about the Vacuum Truck Rentals company or equipment rental, you can call (888) 955-2087, email info@vactruckrental.com, or visit the VTR website anytime!