When taking your business idea from dream to reality,

local business owner says you have to

Expect Anything

James L. Davis

There is a desk in the office of All-Star Equipment Rental that Nicole Lobato is not terribly comfortable sitting behind. The fact that it happens to be her desk doesn’t help.

“People say I have my own business and I say I’m unemployed. They have to remind me that I have a business,” Lobato said, sitting, perhaps uncomfortably, behind her desk.

In the weeks since she has opened the office of her new business in Helper, Lobato said she found herself again and again sitting in the reception area, telling herself that she needed to go and get her office set up. It’s been a struggle, but her office is taking shape and now a picture of her 14 year old daughter, Jourdyn, smiles proudly back at her.

The path that led Lobato, a single mother, from an idea to hanging her daughter’s picture on the wall of a business she owns has been long, winding and full of surprises.

“I’ve learned to expect anything,” Lobato said. “I had an idea but no idea what steps I needed to take to develop my idea.”

Lobato’s idea for her business came while sitting behind another desk, this one as a secretary for Savage Services Corporation, where she worked for more than seven years. She saw invoice after invoice come across her desk for rentals of heavy equipment and with every invoice she saw the possibility for a business.

“I’ve been saying for six years that if someone could come up with the capital to start a business in equipment rental, there was money in it,” Lobato said.

Seeing that there was no local rental place for Caterpillar equipment, Lobato saw a possibility that she finally decided to act on in February.

“I see a lot of potential here. Carbon and Emery County are growing and there’s not enough supply to meet the demand,” she said.

With her idea spurring her into action, Lobato paid a visit to the Ethan Migliori of the Small Business Development Center, who helped her step by step in putting her plan down on paper with the development of a business plan that she could use to arrange financing.

Even before going to the Small Business Development Center, Lobato already knew the key to her business was developing a partnership with Caterpillar dealer Wheeler Machinery. “I knew in my mind that if I was going to be doing business in heavy equipment it would be with Caterpillar equipment and Wheeler Machinery’s reputation is incomparable. CAT equipment is the leader in the industry,” Lobato said.

With no background in construction or heavy equipment, Lobato has done her homework on what she believes her clients will need. She said she has had help along the way and has been amazed at the reception a woman has received in a male dominated industry.

“When I started I wasn’t sure if I had to purchase or lease the equipment. Wheeler was interested in starting some satellite sights because they know the industry is growing and they wanted someone in the area to represent them. Wheeler has been great, from sales to service, I haven’t had a bad experience with them. I don’t know that I would have been as open minded and willing to give me a shot as Wheeler has been with me being a woman in a male dominated industry,” Lobato said.

She said that willingness to work with her to establish her business has been repeated again and again in the months leading up to the establishment of All-Star Equipment Rental.
“It’s been kind of bazaar to see how willing everyone has been to help, from Ethan to Brian Christensen at Zions Bank.

Lobato’s business owns six pieces of heavy equipment and the rest comes from Wheeler Machinery. With 1,700 pieces of heavy equipment, Wheeler has virtually every imaginable piece of equipment and Lobato said the heavy equipment leader has agreed to park equipment for rental on her lot at no cost to her. When the equipment is rented out to businesses or individuals, Wheeler and All-Star will share the rental fees.

“The only way this will fail is because of me and I won’t let that happen,” Lobato said.
She quit her job at Savage in May and admits she has felt unemployed since that time, even as she opened her business before she even had an office established.

“I’ve put all of my eggs into one basket,” she said with a smile. “I try not to think of that too much.”
Determined that her business will make it, she has had plenty of times of doubt and worry and her family has buoyed her up during those times, especially her daughter.

“She has her own business cards. She thinks it is great.”

It is because of her daughter that Lobato is determined that her business will succeed.

“I never thought I was living up to my full potential, I always thought I could do something more, something my daughter could look up to, because she definitely has what it takes to do anything she wants,” she said.

And with equipment in the yard ready to be rented and her office almost comfortable to sit in, Lobato looks to the future when her business is a success and she faces the next challenge of opening her second store, which she is already thinking must come.

“How would you know how to apply the lessons learned if I don’t try again?”