A Tool Shed Opens Salinas Branch at Former Powers Rentals Property

June 26, 2015

2 min read

A Tool Shed, celebrating 70 years in business in northern California, recently opened a new branch in Salinas, Calif., on a yard that formerly housed Powers Rentals, founded by the late Paul Powers Jr. A Tool Shed acquired the facility from current owner Paul Powers III and opened its seventh branch on the site April 1, 49 years to the day from when Powers Rentals opened in April 1, 1966.

“It’s great to be back in the Salinas market,” A Tool Shed CEO Robert Pedersen told RER. “We were there from 2002 through 2008 before the downturn in the economy. With the downturn we pulled back. Now things are picking back up so we’re back in that market and expanding. It’s doing better than I expected. We’re still trying to get the word out that we’re there but it’s picking right up.”

Paul Powers III, still involved in the equipment rental business as a partner in Catalyst, a merger-and-acquisition firm, as well as owner of a trailer and RV dealership called Powers RV, still owns the facility and A Tool Shed is leasing it from him. “It’s great to have a rental yard back on the property,” Powers said.

“Paul and I grew up together in the business so it’s great to lease the facility from him and to be on the property where the Powers business was founded,” Pedersen added.

In February 1996, RER visited the same Salinas facility and ran an article on Pedersen and Powers called “The New Leaders,” profiling the two as up-and-coming California rental people.

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.