Store owners find success in Ocean View

By Sam Harvey
Staff Reporter

	Coastal Point • RUSLANA LAMBERT Al Ott, left, owner of Rent Equip, with Kevin Parcells, shop & yard manager.

And in the summer, gardeners in the area, professional and amateur come to the store to find anything they need to give their garden a professional appeal. Needless to say, business is good for Al and Kathy Ott, owners of the Ocean View Business since the first of June last year.

“It’s going very well,” Al Ott said of the business at the store. “It’s met and exceeded our expectations.”

Kathy and Al Ott moved to Ocean View about one year ago after owning a summer home in Ocean City’s Montego Bay. But although they had settled down permanently in the area, the couple was still making the trip to Baltimore every day, where they both worked in telecommunications.

They stayed with their son a few nights a week, but that quickly got old for them and their son, they said. So, Kathy started asking Al to invest in a local business and leave their Baltimore jobs behind. By coincidence, the Rent Equip stores in Ocean View and Millsboro were for sale and the pair capitalized on the opportunity.

“We found this and bought it,” Al Ott said. “This was just an opportunity.”

And by the beginning of next month, the Ott’s will have the opportunity to appeal to another crowd in the Ocean View area. Starting April 1, the store will rent party equipment. The Otts said that the store will rent everything from tents and canopies to tables and chairs.

They will also rent drink machines that can be used at parties to make assorted drinks and dishes in which to serve the food. The Ott’s said that area residents will be able to come to the store and rent anything for a wedding reception and even a wedding. They will be able to find anything for a birthday party or a dinner party, they added.

Offering party products is something that the Ott’s said they had thought about since taking over in June, saying that there was a need for such a product line in the area. And they will even be able to provide delivery and set-up services for the party equipment for an added rate.

But, most importantly to the area couple new to local business, the new line of products at the store will appeal to group of area residents which has been left out since the Ott’s took over in June, Kathy Ott said.

“That’s the one thing people have asked about and we haven’t been able to accept a job,” she added. “We’d like to provide higher-end stuff. We’ll have a variety of everything necessary for any kind of social event.”

Social events will now just be another part of the repertoire for the Ott’s and their new business. The Ott’s said that although the rental equipment business was not one that they had ever before considered, it has turned out to be an opportunity with a tremendous amount of potential for the couple.

Now when they sit in the store every morning and afternoon, workers visit the store to rent anything from an electric concrete mixer to a gas-powered buggy to a 22-ton house jack. Individuals stop by for things from as small as a wrench to a jackhammer. And along with the gardeners, stopping by for their electric chainsaws and 30-inch gas hedge trimmers, partygoers will likely frequent the store in the summer, giving the Ott’s plenty of welcomed local business.

“You can set your watch by it,” Al Ott said.

You can reach Rent Equip at 537-9700.