Norty Turner has been named senior vice president, services & advanced solutions, United Rentals. This new function at United Rentals will focus on building out a scaled and dedicated services and advanced solutions platform in support of United Rentals’ customers. This will include United Academy, Customer Equipment Service, Customer Fleet Solutions, and Advanced Solutions.
Before joining United Rentals, Turner was CEO of Riwal, based at its headquarters location in Dordrecht, The Netherlands. Turner was with Riwal, an international rental and sales specialist of aerial work platforms, telehandlers and power generators with 67 branch operations in 16 countries, from 2012 until last October.
Prior to joining Riwal, Turner had a series of sales and operations roles at Hertz Equipment Rental Corp. beginning in 1995. Starting his career in internal sales in Georgia and then North Carolina, he moved on to outside sales, and worked up through the ranks to branch manager and region manager. He then took on larger roles in Europe, where he served as vice president & general manager for operations for Europe and the Middle East, and also served as president for Hertz Equipment in France.
Turner is also deputy president and a member of the board of directors of the International Powered Access Federation.
Turner holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master’s of science degree in management from North Carolina State University.
“As we look to further grow United Rentals, we have put a strategic focus on building out a scaled and dedicated services and solutions portfolio to complement our core business, combined with innovation, all in support of our customers,” said Matt Flannery, president and chief operating officer, United Rentals. “Norty Turner is ideally suited for this important role on the United Rentals management team, taking full advantage of his unique skills and experience as one of our industry’s most seasoned executives.”
“There’s been a real signal from Matt to make services a larger part of our offering,” Turner told RER in explaining his role. “Specifically, CES, customer equipment solutions, is essentially customer-owned equipment repair and maintenance, offering repair and service in our facilities, technical maintenance on our customers’ equipment. It’s gotten off to a really good start and we’re going to invest a lot more into that. Customer Fleet Solutions is fleet management, so if customer owns fleet, we can manage it for them. Applying our fleet management expertise to their owned fleet assets, helping with capital decisions. What should they rent, what should they buy, and we’ll also help with disposal of that fleet eventually as well. So, it’s helping them to optimize their own equipment.
“And then United Academy, safety training and that has been a growing business for United Rentals and we’re going to be investing in that even more, it’s a great opportunity for us. I already have a strong team in place and am going to put even more into that. Advanced Solutions goes into some innovative initiatives that we started and have had some success with, such as drone services, autonomous vehicles, robotics, wearable technology that enhance people’s safety and productivity.
“We’ve got the largest equipment fleet in the world so we apply our expertise very day to optimizing and maximizing that fleet and supplying that expertise to our customers who are really great at building things and performing various tasks and demands in industrial plants and construction sites, so they’re really great at doing that so let’s apply our best practices to help them and bring more value to them.”
The announcement of Turner’s role comes a week before Flannery takes over as CEO May 8. Turner was the first significant leadership appointment made by Flannery since United announced his new role as CEO in January.
Turner will be based at United Rentals’ Stamford, Conn., headquarters and will report directly to Flannery.
