Robert C. Elmen

Robert Elmen spent six decades in the equipment rental business. His father, Lloyd, started the business in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1950, before Bob opened a store in Vallejo, California while serving in the navy during the Korean War. He and his brother Jim built the company into, at one time, the largest privately owned general rental enterprise in the US. Ultimately, employees throughout the eleven-state enterprise had 51 percent ownership interest in the company through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) when Elmen Rent All, Inc. was sold to Greenwich, Connecticut-based United Rentals Inc. (NYSE: URI) in 1999. Elmen served on the South Dakota Investment Council from 1992-1997 and was chairman the last two years. In addition to earning an undergraduate degree in history and a master’s degree in economics, Bob was granted an honorary doctorate in 1997 by Augustana College in Sioux Falls, and was inducted into the American Rental Association’s Rental Hall of Fame in 2013. He and his wife Rita, who have been married over sixty years, have three children and nine grandchildren. An avid outdoorsman, Bob has hatched and refined many enterprising ideas while fishing in South Padre Island, Texas, or hunting on the family ranch in Buffalo Gap, South Dakota.