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Wilson
Rental is a third generation family business that
was established in 1958 by Henry Wilson and his wife
Bernice. They started with a small inventory of lawn and
garden equipment, some tables and chairs and china.
Henry worked seven days a week maintaining business
hours and making the deliveries after hours. Bernice was
the head checker at a National Food grocery store and
worked at Wilson Rental on Wednesdays to take care of
the bookkeeping as well as waiting on customers.
Bob joined the company in 1963 with his wife Karin
starting part time shortly after. Bob’s brother Bill
started in 1967. This was truly a family venture as
these five people were the company.
Henry's sons Bill and Bob, along with Bob's wife Karin,
ran Wilson Rental from 1972 until recently. During their
time Wilson rental progressed into a tool and equipment
rental serving mostly contractors and industrial firms
in the south suburbs and northwest Indiana.
Bob's sons Dennis and Mike joined Wilson Rental in 1981
and took an interest in tents and portable restroom
rental. Being in an industry that is so diversified, it
was easy to add these items to our mix. The tents were
becoming very popular and the portable restrooms could
be offered to the existing commercial base as well as
the tent customers.
A major portion of Wilson Rentals business was with
contractors doing maintenance in the steel mills of
southern Lake Michigan. This business died off as the
mills were being rebuilt with modern facilities. At the
same time, the box stores with their massive buying
power started selling equipment at a price lower than
Wilson Rental dealer cost.
Tent and portable restroom rentals were picking up at a
rapid pace as the construction rental began struggling.
Wilson Rental was going through a change and put large
investments into tents, tables, chairs, stages, dance
floors and all of the accessories with almost no
construction equipment being added. The handwriting was
on the wall that Wilson Rental was becoming exclusively
a special event rental company.
In 2003, Bill retired from Wilson Rental with Bob and
Karin becoming the sole owners. Dennis and Mike
continued taking more of a management role. The fall of
2005 brought the final change of the construction rental
equipment and was sold off with the proceeds invested
into special event equipment.
In the spring of 2007 Dennis and Mike officially took
over the management of the company. Karin is helping
with the transformation to yet another computer system
and Bob opened a Sales office in Chicago to help expand
that market. And the the story continues…
Wilson Rental has never changed its philosophy that "Total
Customer Satisfaction" assures success. We take
great pride of maintaining our equipment and rental
items and respond rapidly to our customers needs.
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