Previously often called C & B Materials Dealing with, Burwell Materials Dealing with is a full-cycle single-source supplier in materials dealing with with 5 core divisions: gear gross sales, rental, linked fleet and security applied sciences, components and repair, and custom-engineered options.
The corporate was constructed on the inspiration laid by Rod Burwell almost 50 years in the past of service, innovation, and reliability. Nonetheless family-owned, Burwell Materials Dealing with has grown to 18 branches all through the Midwest, South, and Mid-Atlantic. Rental linked with Matt Hicks, govt vp of rental, and Kent Senf, president of the fabric dealing with division in June 2025.
Q. What are you able to inform us about Burwell Materials Dealing with, the corporate?
Senf: At Burwell Materials Dealing with, we take delight in our family-owned enterprise with a wealthy historical past of commercial innovation and management. Our dedication to providing smarter, safer options has allowed us to guide the marketplace for generations in different industries, and we’re seeking to do the identical inside materials dealing with and gear rental. 
Kent Senf, President of the Materials Dealing with Division, Burwell Materials Dealing withBurwell Materials Dealing with
What units us aside is our dedication to serving as our prospects’ provider of selection, pushed by each buyer and worker suggestions. We’re massive sufficient to remain on the forefront of expertise and keep the precise gear, but sufficiently small to genuinely care about our prospects and staff.
Integrity can also be considered one of our key pillars. We actively interact in “voice of the client” initiatives to grasp and meet our prospects’ wants. Equally, our “voice of the group” occasions contain the chief group listening to staff to enhance our enterprise and create distinctive options for our prospects. We imagine that being the provider and employer of selection requires us to really hear and act on the suggestions we obtain.
Q. When did the corporate start?
Senf: Our founder, Rod Burwell, had a spark for innovating industrial options and companies that began again within the Nineteen Seventies, when he created a safer and extra environment friendly fiberglass barge cowl with simply $5,000 after a request from the Cargill company.
This product revolutionized the agricultural business, and Rod continued to innovate, inventing and patenting the double-wall containment tank made from fiberglass to deal with underground gasoline tank leaks. Ultimately, he partnered with Dan Cronin to determine a John Deere agricultural gear dealership group, which the Burwell household bought in 2024, and the fabric dealing with aspect of the enterprise grew out of that.
Rod handed away in March 2015, however his legacy lives on by way of his three sons, Peter, Blake, and Michael, who proceed to uphold the household title and enterprise values.
Rod’s lesson stays central to our operations:
Whether or not it prices us extra money or takes extra time, do it the precise approach. Make sure that the answer is correct for us and the client, so after we put our title on it, we by no means have to fret about the way it seems to be in public or the way it may come again to us negatively.
Q. Are you able to stroll us by way of the corporate’s present enlargement technique?
Senf: Proper now, now we have 18 branches. Loads of our prospects have a number of areas unfold all through a number of states, they usually had been beforehand annoyed with having to search out new suppliers for each location. Additionally they felt like they weren’t heard or valued as prospects by a few of their different suppliers. We’ve focused our enlargement primarily based on particular areas which can be tied to delivery routes, resembling river delivery or interstate and rail journey, and imagine there is a chance to be an integral a part of our prospects’ future by actually listening and discovering distinctive options that convey worth to their companies.
Our plans goal to create geographical protection for our prospects so we may very well be that single supply provider they need, and likewise be very fast to satisfy their wants. What’s thrilling is that we’re not carried out but; we’ve acquired extra acquisitions within the works that we plan to announce quickly.
Hicks: It’s about overlaying all features of our buyer’s enterprise. We’re attempting to construct a footprint throughout the nation the place we will deal with them utterly. 
Matt Hicks, Govt Vice President of Leases, Burwell Materials Dealing withBurwell Materials Dealing with
Senf: We’re additionally increasing our amount and high quality of our forklifts, skid steers, and mini-excavators. Since Matt got here on board, now we have carried out quite a lot of transferring the precise gear to the precise locations, but additionally enhancing our fleet considerably, in order that when a buyer involves hire from us, we would like them to have the precise piece of kit with the precise security options for them.
Hicks: On high of that, a few of the fleet that we’re ordering proper now (the skid steers, the mini excavators, and a few of the grime gear) is model new. We have the latest and most dependable gear out there.
Q. Many rental outlets have a lot smaller operations. Do you assume this technique additionally works on a smaller scale?
Hicks: Kent and the management group have shaped their plans and methods from analysis on that actual assertion: on being in the precise markets and the precise alternatives the place we’re wanted. We have now acquired to be responsive within the rental recreation. Our fleet must be prepared and obtainable to go for last-minute orders. And we even have to have the ability to ship and repair our gear logistically.
As we develop, we’re retaining that footprint in thoughts in order that it’s extra about being available to the shoppers greater than the rest.
Senf: We don’t wish to be a enterprise only for the big prospects. In truth, my heritage and historical past comes from southern Minnesota — working with farmers day-after-day. We all know the worth of a small buyer to our enterprise, and this can be very vital.
We’re constructing out a rental enterprise the place we’re going to be completely ready and prepared within the areas that we serve, however we’re additionally not going to create a system the place we will’t totally help each rental that’s on the market.
For me, it actually doesn’t matter if in case you have 100 items on hire or one piece. If a buyer has an issue, we have to repair that drawback — we wish to be totally invested in that.
There are numerous alternatives the place you may have rental homes that perhaps have one or two areas in a smaller geographical space, and I completely respect and perceive what they’re doing. We additionally acknowledge that a few of these prospects are going to journey and that we have to help them in one of the simplest ways attainable.
I feel we’re threading the needle between being a small, one-location rental home and never getting so large that we will’t totally perceive the wants of each buyer that’s on the market and reply to them appropriately.
Burwell Materials Dealing with’s area service workplace in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.Burwell Materials Dealing with
Q. How did you two get into the enterprise?
Senf: I used to be with an agricultural gear producer and had an exquisite profession going. One of many individuals who labored for the Burwell household was a {golfing} accomplice of mine, and he stored on nudging me repeatedly to sit down down with Matt Cronin, who’s Dan Cronin’s son, and Rod Burwell to speak about turning into a part of the group.
Ultimately, I sat down with them and was satisfied. They introduced me on because the chief working officer for his or her John Deere agricultural gear enterprise. I admired Rod’s management model as a result of he had a singular approach of main folks — his presence was felt when he entered a room, not due to what he mentioned, however due to the aura he carried. He would stroll by way of the again of the store, listening to the technicians, and make his approach to the entrance. By the point he spoke to the final supervisor, he knew what was taking place all through the ability, understanding it from the attitude of these doing the work.
Rod utterly revered and valued the folks doing the work. Rising up in a small farm city, I appreciated this strategy. I beloved the concept of valuing each particular person within the enterprise and giving them a voice to assist information, steer, and transfer us in the precise path.
Over the course of the 18 years that I’ve been a part of the corporate, I used to be blessed to be a part of the management for the John Deere enterprise. About three and a half to 4 years in the past, I needed to begin a brand new enterprise for the Burwell household. After intensive analysis and understanding of the fabric dealing with, rental, and engineering options companies, I felt it was an excellent alternative to mix our experiences and develop in a brand new business.
Hicks: I began truly with a small mom-and-pop rental firm named Blue Eagle Leases. They had been acquired by Volvo Rents, which was then acquired by Platinum Fairness Group, they usually created Blue Line Rental.
After they had been acquired by United Leases, I went to work for Gear Share, the place I used to be for the final six years. Then Kent reached out. I got here out and met the management group, most of whom have been with the corporate for 15+ years by way of these a number of completely different corporations. That longevity at that degree of management could be very unusual for an gear distributor, in my expertise, and it acquired my consideration.
What’s noteworthy is that we aren’t attempting to do one thing for the primary time right here. This group has constructed a number of profitable companies; they’ve been entrepreneurs throughout a number of completely different entities. It’s very seldom that you just get the chance to work with individuals who have constructed quite a lot of companies up to now and succeeded. Once I heard their story and noticed their integrity, I used to be hooked earlier than I left that first assembly.
That’s how I ended up right here. At this level in my profession, I wish to be surrounded by folks with that sort of expertise and that sort of integrity in enterprise.
Q. Are you able to guys discuss concerning the concept behind “right-sizing” and “readiness?” Why are these ideas vital for gear rental?
Hicks: Readiness is our readiness, and repair is high precedence once you’re speaking about rental gear.
In June 2025, Burwell Materials Dealing with introduced their partnership with Arcure to convey its Blaxtair AI-powered pedestrain-detection system for all its forklift property.Burwell Materials Dealing with | Arcure
A rental asset is commonly wanted not due to poor planning, however as a result of one thing occurred final minute. For instance, a buyer’s fleet is extremely utilized, they usually want an additional piece of kit. After they name us, now we have to be prepared.
Our aim is that earlier than we are saying we’re able to go, our gear is able to go and that we’re obtainable to ship it to the job for last-minute requests. Readiness means the gear’s been checked by way of, it’s going to work the way in which it ought to when it will get there, and it’s going to be on time.
Within the rental business, our status to reply with rental-ready gear is all now we have to go on, and that’s what we’re constructing this rental division on.
Q. In the event you may have dinner with three folks from historical past, who would you wish to have dinner with and why?
Senf: My three can be Winston Churchill, Herb Brooks, and Satya Nadella.
Churchill as a result of I really like his management in disaster and his strategic imaginative and prescient. Most significantly, he was an unimaginable communicator. I had the blessing to have the ability to go to the outdated warfare workplace this final 12 months in London, the place his workplace was. He communicated day-after-day to his complete group and gave them that unshakable resolve. I feel it might be unimaginable simply to sit down down and perceive his steadiness of optimism and brutal honesty in actually dire conditions. I’m an enormous fan of Winston Churchill.
I’m a Minnesota child, so I’ve to say Herb Brooks — the coach of the 1980 U.S. Olympic ice hockey group. Not solely was he a legend, however he had simply pure mastery of utilizing psychology and perception to construct unimaginable groups.
Satya Nadella is the CEO and chairman of Microsoft. How may you not ask him concerning the visionary aspect of the tech business? He’s introduced transformational management, but additionally has this unimaginable development mindset that I’m simply completely envious of. I might simply like to ask him about how he thought by way of the fostering of innovation in an moral and accountable approach in these rising applied sciences.
Hicks: Steve Jobs, Michael Jordan, and Doc Holliday.
My primary is Steve Jobs. I’m in awe of how he may create units which can be going to affect humanity for generations to return. I’d like to ask him questions on his mindset as an innovator.
Subsequent is Michael Jordan. Jordan acquired lower from his highschool basketball group, however he didn’t surrender. He persevered. He grew to become the GOAT, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. I don’t assume you must even contemplate LeBron James in a dialog with the best of all time — these feedback usually come from generations that weren’t round throughout Michael Jordan’s profession.
My third is Doc Holliday. I’d wish to see what it was like within the Wild West again then — how he needed to adapt and take dangers as a gambler, gunfighter, and hustler. I like that potential to be relentless at doing no matter it takes to outlive.
