For 30 years, Kenny Puff has run, in essence, the best-stocked tool shop imaginable, growing from his first transaction ”“ a circular saw rental ”“ to a thrumming tool yard of light stanchions, skid loaders, excavators and wood chippers in Elmsford.
Puff”™s Westchester Tool Rentals on Vreeland Avenue has 70 generators ready to fire should another superstorm strike. Every one of them was spoken for when Sandy hit last October.
It”™s only natural that, having fixed up your home, business, roadway or forest using his vast fix-it offerings, a person might want to entertain. And Puff has responded, now employing 35 in his Party Line Tent Rentals. Fourteen work on the tool side.
“You could build a country with what we offer,” Puff said, walking the length of the Westchester Tool Rentals yard on a hot recent afternoon.
A golf shot away, workers cleaned vinyl tents and hoisted them, dripping, three stories to the rafters of the company warehouse. Plates, glasses, mobile stoves, tables, chairs and mobile flooring are available, too, through Party Line Tent Rentals and its Road Runner Mobile Kitchens arm. Climate-controlled Party Line tents grace events in Manhattan”™s Rockefeller Center, Lincoln Center and Bryant Park.
“We”™ve provided tents for about 1,200 movies and TV shows,” Puff said, citing a revenue stream that has been flowing since he first took a cold call in 1992 looking for a tent for a “Toonces the Cat” production in Pound Ridge.
Party Line tents and catering equipment have contracted to the likes of “Salt,” “The Sopranos,” “Sex in the City,” “Sleepless in Seattle” and “I Am Legend.” Tents are as small as 10-by-10 feet and as large as 80-by-360 feet.
Generally, three-generation family businesses are begun by the grandfather, who brings in the son or daughter and then the grandson/granddaughter. In Kenny Puff”™s case, he began the company in 1983 and in 1985 he hired his father, Erwin, who goes by Buddy and who formerly dug industrial water wells. In 1987, his mother, Anne, joined the company as treasurer and bookkeeper.
“Buddy always said to think like a farmer,” Kenny Puff said. “If something breaks down in the middle of a field, you have to rebuild it or improvise ”“ always be thinking on your feet. And that continues to serve us today.” He personally has lived the credo since he was a boy.
“At 14 I was cutting 36 lawns,” he said. “I”™ve always been turning wrenches.”
Completing the family involvement, Karin Puff, Kenny”™s wife, is in charge of human resources and payroll; Ben Puff, 23, who recently graduated from SUNY Albany and who clambers aboard a hydraulic excavator the way another person steps into a car, works full time; his younger sisters, Jennifer and Christina, work as part-time interns.
“We”™re in the service industry,” said Ben Puff, whose degree is in sales and marketing. In two full-time years with the company, he has elevated “unit sales” ”“ a unit being any product in the shop ”“ by 272 percent.
Trends in equipment include “anything that lifts,” Kenny Puff said. Also, “anything that”™s green.” The green factor works well for the company, he explained: “Basically, the whole tool-rental concept is green. You”™re not buying something just to watch it sit around.”
Puff”™s first rental in 1983 was for a generator and circular saw. By 1986 he had left his original 2,500-square-foot shop on Elmsford”™s Hayes Street for the current shop on Vreeland Avenue, which includes 4,200 recently added square feet for a total 10,000 square feet. He praised his employees, noting they average more than seven years with the company, exceeding the industry average by four or five years. Employees Rich Divestea and Jimmy Gowans each have more than 20 years.
“I tell my guys to get on the other side of the counter,” Kenny Puff said. “We want to make sure we”™re confident of the price and of the service. It”™s a great team effort; thank God for good, dedicated employees. You can”™t do it all by yourself.”
As for the oddball request: “No, we don”™t rent elephants, but I might know somebody who does,” he said. Clients on the tool side include arborists, excavators, carpenters, plumbers, heavy highway contractors, rock blasters and marine contractors.
Need a floor sander that reaches under radiators? Fresh out of air-fed helmets for sandblasting? Or ”“ for that driveway job ”“ what neighbor can spare an articulated 3-ton vibratory roller?
And trench rollers, floor grinders and conveyor belts. Westchester Tool Rentals offers mini-excavators featuring 18-inch, 24-inch and 30-inch buckets. Or a 65-foot hydraulic boom. “Whatever it takes,” Ben Puff said.
The 30-page catalog of tool offerings says, “No truck? No time? No problem! We deliver.”
The company sells, repairs and rents equipment, making it “a one-stop shop for contractors,” according to Kenny Puff. “You don”™t have to stop at 10 different places. Money is time and time is money.”
The two websites are wtrrentals.com and partylinerentals.com.
A really great article about a company who is very highly regarded by the players in the Tent Rental Industry.