The Front Porch

Joseph (Joey) Marks drops by the Front Porch to talk about his path from paleontology to selling software. He explained the differences in working with strategic accounts vs SMB, talked about the growth of the company's SDR team, and how he got into sales in the first place. We also discussed his enthusiasm for watch collecting, the time he traveled the same roads as James Bond, and played a game...

Evan Fort, Point of Rental's SVP of Global Technology, drops by the Front Porch to talk about his career in technology, from starting in IT for a school district to building the company's Essentials product from the ground up in 2014 to leading Point of Rental's development and QA teams.  We also discussed his escape room expertise, ranked the country's best escape rooms, and played a game of "For...

On this episode we talked to Andy Clark about his career, coming from construction to tube sales to car sales to software. We learned about the time he decided rodeo was no longer for him, about how to chase fulfillment in your career rather than what you're told success is, and more!

Tier I Senior Windows Support Technician Brian Dugger steps onto the Porch to talk about his career in the service industry prior to getting to Point of Rental, as well as what he's been doing during his two-plus years at POR.  We found out about his secret stashes of food in "Brian or Lyin'" and that he sure wants to know when and how he's going to die. 

Scott Plomer, Point of Rental's web developer, started his career with interests in firefighting and engineering. He ditched it all to pursue creative passions, move to the DFW area, and start a career in web development. Now he's helping Point of Rental build out a YouTube channel, developing new features on internal and external projects, hitting the links on occasion, and he's even published a...

Melanie Kaye is a Project Coordinator in Point of Rental's UK office, working with renters and hirers to get them set up and happy with their new software. We learned about how she got into the industry, all about her job, and more about her and her love of live music and leopard print...everything!

Adam Seyedmortaza is one of Point of Rental's Software Engineer Team Leads and has been a Pointer for about six years now. He joins us on the Front Porch to chat about his career, how he got to Point of Rental, and play a game of Seyedmortaza or Say-no-mortaza.

Jack Baker is one of Point of Rental's new Strategic SDRs. He's taken a different path to Point of Rental - from scooter riding to serving - and applied lessons learned from both to become an excellent Sales Development Representative. If you're looking for the YouTube video of Jack doing tricks on scooters as a kid, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3bd0MSxaIQ

UK Software Support Manager Rob Warwick sits down on the PORch to talk about how he got into software support, lessons that translate from the soccer pitch to the workplace, and a host of other things. *NOTE: This episode is marked explicit for references to a TV show title that sounds like a swear word and because we're not sure if the game "Rob or Knob" should be censored, but it would've requir...

Joan McKinlay joins The Front Porch fresh off her trip to Slovakia as part of Plant & Hire Aid Alliance's convoy to bring supplies to Ukrainian refugees there.  While we spent a lot of our chat talking about her experience there, we also learned how she started her career, her time at Point of Rental, her love of musical theatre (including her Top 5 musicals of all time), and we even had our f...

In a special edition of The Front Porch, we recorded our Industry Panel session at the 2022 International Conference. Panelists include, in order of appearance: John Hiatt, SitePro Rentals Frances Ellison, Curated Events Michelle Kuenning Bullock, Tates Rents Matt Musgrove, Tejas Equipment Rental

Jeremy Mackey grew up wanting to be a Power Ranger and now he's delivering lessons and knowledge to Point of Rental users...so, pretty close! We got his backstory, learned what brought him from Oklahoma to Texas and got his fantasy football insights just in time for your drafts (he's a back-to-back defending fantasy league champion around these parts).

The ARA's Bridget Otten joined us on the Front Porch this month! We talked about her career in event organizing, YP events, played a game of "Otten or Not In", and learned a surprising amount about the Quad Cities.

We talked to our HR and Payroll Manager Sara Wilhite to learn more about what HR is really all about and it pretty much turned into a "tell us good stories about people that either got fired or really should've been fired" session. We also learned about her karaoke side career and got the most confusing Top 5 list we've heard on the show.

Samantha Ruttura and her family have been in the construction or construction-adjacent industries for 100+ years (OK, just her family has; she definitely isn't 100+ years old). We talked about managing to find her own way while sticking close to family, leadership philosophies, and discovered which local restaurant she'd opt to have her last meal from (if it ever came to that).

Brian Beaudry is Point of Rental's NI Content Generator. You can learn what that means, about filling in as an emergency guest, and learn about his ArenaBowl championship ring.

We welcome our first Australian non-Pointer guest to The Front PORch! Amy Mulligan joins us from Western Australia - she and her husband founded AJM Hire in 2019 after having wanted to open a hire business for years...only to have to close it as COVID and lockdowns hit Australia. But they're back in now and growing quickly. We talked to her about her background and running multiple businesses with...

We talked to Essentials Team Lead Ross Stratman about being a developer for many, many years, some of what he's done professionally, and how he went from wanting to be a cowboy into becoming a software developer.  His website, which he mentioned in the episode: https://stratmansoftware.com/ Here's the wikipedia entry for the Collatz conjecture, if you'd like to prove/disprove it: https://en.wikipe...

Ben Sinclair heads up Point of Rental's Canadian operations, having moved all the way from Australia to do so. We talked to him about the transition between countries, his hobbies, and what he's looking forward to doing in his new hometown!

Peter Maginnis's journey has taken him through California's wine industry, through Australia, running a rental store, and self-storage. Now he's helping make inefficiencies extinct with Makinex.  We talked about rental from the supplier side of things, learned about his fear of birds, and how kids affect his competitive side.

As our Director of Software Development for Essentials (and eSign), Robert Flach is a busy man. But that doesn't mean he can't make time for drama - or comedy - by participating in community theatre projects after work. We learned about Essentials and many of Robert's surprising talents in this episode of The Front Porch.

If you learn just one thing about Andrew Heesacker and Arvada Rent-Alls by listening to this video, let it be how to pronounce his name. It seems like there's a pretty good chance you'll run across him if you're in the rental industry.  We talked about his journey to becoming President/CEO of his own company, and how he got the buy-in from staff that had been there since he was a kid. He had books...

Paul Alleyne started in the radio business as a teen and has made his way to become a Tier I Software Support Technician at Point of Rental. He taught us all about being on the other end of the line for the emergency call buttons on a car and what it's like to work the night shift at a gas station. We even learned about the time he failed out of "jail school" - probably for being too nice.

Frances Ellison is CE Rental's IT Business Development Director, but once upon a time she was one of Point of Rental's leading software experts. We talked about her career, from her time in the equipment rental to POR to her job at CE and how she's handled those transitions.  We also learned how she handles remote working and her plans for the future, which apparently includes a lot of cool partie...

This month on The Front Porch, we talked to Collin Pike, the company's new Chief Architect of Cloud Engineering. We found out what on earth that means, about his paramotoring adventures, and learned a lot about FAA rules along the way.