For years, Steve Whitman built a career in the environmental industry, working in different parts of the country before realizing that financial success didn’t always equal happiness. Though he was making good money, the industry no longer excited him. At 35 years old, he made a life-changing decision to return home to North Alabama and start All Needz Rental Center.

Starting with just one delivery truck and a focus on equipment rental, Steve steadily grew the business, acquiring a small event company and expanding into weddings and special events. Over the years, what began as a modest operation transformed into a premier rental company serving North Alabama and beyond.

Now, nearly 27 years later, All Needz Rental has become a go-to provider for weddings, corporate gatherings, backyard parties, and large-scale events. With a team of 15 full-time employees, a fleet of nine delivery trucks, and an inventory that includes more than 200 tents, 80,000 pieces of china, glassware, and flatware, thousands of tables, chairs, and furniture, and over 9,000 table linens, the company continues to thrive.

“Anything you can imagine for an event or a party,” Whitman said, “we’re going to have it, or we’re going to find it for our customer. If we don’t have it, we do our best to find it.”

Whitman recently sat down with the Huntsville Business Journal to share his journey as a business owner and how his event business survived the event-pocalypse during the COVID pandemic.

What do you enjoy most about owning your own business?

I enjoy not working for someone else. I enjoy the sales aspect of it, and I enjoy talking to people. I grew up in sales, so that’s my favorite part. I’ve had employees that have been here for 25 years working for me. So I enjoy the people that work for me as well. They’re absolutely amazing. I could leave indefinitely and I know that this business would run just like it would if I were here, and I think that says a lot about the company and employees. I take care of them, and they take care of me and our customers. So when I said that I don’t like working for anyone else, actually, I work for thousands of people because I work for our customers.

How do you balance personal and professional life as a business owner?

Initially, it was all business because there were three of us. We had a certain amount of linens, maybe 30 or 40 linens to start with — now we have 9,000 plus. We didn’t have an in-house washing and pressing facility, so when we rented linens out and they would come back, we would put them in our own washing machine at the house, and then we would put them through our dryer at the house. And if we didn’t catch them on the cool down cycle and they got wrinkled, we’d have to wash them again. Now we’ve grown such that my employees pretty much take care of everything. I do all of the job surveys, or most of them. I interact with customers. Initially, it was very tough, and a lot of blood, sweat and tears just wondering if we’re going to make it. But now for me, I work when I want to.

How do you stay relevant in an industry that’s ever-changing?

I tell myself every year I’m not buying any capital equipment, but my employees say, look, this is out, we’ve got to have so many of these because everyone’s asking for them. We’ve got trucks outback right now unloading a lot of new things. It used to be that candelabras were a big deal at weddings. People stopped renting those so we got rid of those, but there’s always something new. Our first mobile luxury restroom trailer is coming in next week, and we’ve already rented it enough to pay for it already. We’ll be getting more of those, I’m sure.

What advice would you have for someone who’s considering starting their own business?

It’s a leap of faith. You just have to understand that if you’re going to do it, you have to put in sweat equity to start with, and you may always have to do that the whole time you own the business. Our business has grown such that I don’t have to do as much as I used to, but I did a lot upfront working seven days a week, 12 to 14 hours a day. There are going to be times when whoever opens their business is going to wonder, why did they do it? But if you work hard enough and you have the right attitude, and you have the right people around you, you’ll be successful.

What challenges or obstacles have you faced in your business and how did you overcome?

In 2008 and 2009, the economy was really bad. That really didn’t affect us much because I would say the city is somewhat recession proof with the government entities and the government contractors here. But what almost put us out of business was COVID. It was a very tough time. We had over a million dollars in contract cancellations in one week and so we just buckled down, and got a couple of PPP loans and a government loan, and we just cut all spending and eventually it came back and it’s back better than it ever has been.

What is the secret to your success?

My employees. They’re the best. They’re like my family.