Apparently you can take young rental men out of Montana, but you can’t take Montana out of the young rental men. So when Adam and Carson Sneed, who were born in North Carolina and grew up in Montana, moved back east to Danville, Va., they decided to turn their new rental business, Big Sky Rents, into an old western town. Or at least, they made it look like one, with facades and architecture that look just like Montana.
Did it work? The company has tripled in size every year since it started in 2010. After starting with three employees, there are now 29.
The Sneeds used the old west motif to attract attention as something different, that everybody in town would know about. But the novelty only goes so far if it isn’t backed up by service. The Sneed brothers grew up around their dad’s rental business in Montana and the rental business was clearly in their blood. Their father Chuck Sneed bought an equipment rental business called United Tool Rental in Big Fork, Mont., in 1999, and later acquired Sun Rental in Kalispell and Polson. In 2007, the Sneed family sold the business and after moving back east, Adam and Carson started Big Sky in 2010.
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About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.