Kaplan: The primary issue for the rental

industry today is the effect of rental rates, curtailing

the growth of the industry. Rates have come down,

profitability has come down, cap-ex spending is

declining, acquisitions of stores and greenfield

openings are declining — all driven by a lack of

profitability. And that’s going to impact not only

rental companies — it is impacting manufacturers,

forcing manufacturers to consolidate, and impacting the

A.R.A. show, as well.

Stansberry: I think everybody is trying to

grab market share, especially in the larger equipment,

and I really think there is a great opportunity for the

independents, but I think they’re going to have to

increase their level of sophistication. I don’t think

it’s always going to be in their best interests to try

to compete with the NationsRents, Uniteds and Hertz

Equipment Rentals. They’re going to have to use some

more sophisticated information-gathering techniques to

educate their employees and managers. I think it’s

important for the independents to really focus on what

they’re trying to do and raise their business to a new

level of professionalism that we haven’t seen in the

past.

Kaplan: He is absolutely correct. I have been

to many small rental companies, consulting, and I’m

appalled [that so many] don’t understand software. Tools

are out there to be had. You can’t run a rental company

well without information systems. And you have to

understand how to use them.

Miller: I understand what you’re saying.

That’s an issue. The problem is the small business

cannot compete at your level because we don’t have quite

the buying power that you do. [But] the big players are

not service-oriented. Their main idea is to just go for

people like us.

Wehrman: How do you approach competing? How

do you compete when rates are so important?

Miller: Our major way of competing is

service. That’s what we concentrate on more than

anything. We take care of our customers. Orlando is a

very tough market, but we’ve been here 40 years and we

have built a very solid customer base. But you still

have to answer to the big boys.

Richardson: What are you going to do when a

contractor calls at 3 in the morning and says the

generator broke down? Who else is going to provide

24-hour service 365 days a year? I think we have to get

smarter at marketing ourselves. I do see light at the

end of the tunnel, and it’s not a train — there is hope

out there.

Pedersen: The consolidators have no concept

of how to make a profit in our industry based on

service. We had a large computer before the

mini-computers were even invented — over 20 years we’ve

had a computer — and its primary function is customer

service. I think the folks who grabbed this ball a few

years ago thought this would be a great industry to be

involved in, but didn’t know a thing about service, and

it’s strictly a service business. It is not just an

industry to squeeze some bottom-line profit out of. We

have been doing this for 56 years and we’ve seen a lot

of them come and go. You can’t really manage a service

industry business from afar. Managers working for a

bottom-line profit will create a feeding frenzy for

rates. Salesmen are out there trying to make a living.

You’ve got stores with the same names on the sides of

their pickups and nine salesmen from nine different

stores calling on the same contractor. The contractor

eventually gets tired of it. These stores don’t share

equipment like we do. All my stores share equipment.

When a contractor calls me wanting a backhoe, he gets a

backhoe Saturday morning. When he calls one of the

larger companies, he may or may not get it and he

doesn’t know who he called. These large stores are

confused. I mean those of us who have been in this

industry, who have dedicated our lives serving the

consumers in our community, know what it takes to make a

profit. Our bottom-line profit is astronomical compared

to what those folks expect after seeing somebody’s

financial statements. But they can’t do it. They never

will do it.

Wehrman: Phil, can you do it?

Petrocelli: It’s a capital-intensive

business. I think Dan’s point was that the industry’s

rate of growth will slow if the rates don’t come up, and

that’s true, because you’ve got to make a return on the

capital investment. I think we have $1.2 billion in

inventory at first cost — we’ve got to have information

systems to be able to manage that and see what’s going

on. We’re up to, I think, 205 locations. You do have to

keep a customer with service. But it’s difficult to make

it all work. You’re trying to convert entrepreneurs and

cultures and information systems and everything else.

And when you’re doing the consolidation roll-up kind of

game — we did 71 acquisitions, I think — even if you

have done it before, you always think you can get better

at it. Next time it happens that much more smoothly.

Construction spending grew in the double digits in the

late ’90s and now it’s slowed. There’s been

over-fleeting in the market. That’s pushed down prices

in the used equipment, rental rates and new equipment

sales. I think it’s going to take some time for that to

straighten itself out.

Wehrman: What will be the key to turn that

around?

Petrocelli: It will be a combination.

Everyone will spend less this year on new equipment.

Manufacturers’ sales should go down this year in

general. That will flush some of the equipment out into

the used-equipment market. Some of it will go outside

the United States. And then as long as the economy

holds, construction spending grows a little bit, rates

should be able to rise. But there will be further

consolidation amongst the larger companies as well.

You’ll get the top three or four players and lots of

small players, niche players, specialty areas — it all

will find its own level, because you’re going to have to

make a profit to stay in business. But everyone will

focus more on service. 

Kaplan: All the big rental companies run with

regional offices. Look at the large consolidators and

the progress they have made. They’re only 42 months old.

I think you said, Larry, [your business was] 56 years

old. So a lot of progress has been made in 42 months.

NationsRent has 71 acquisitions, United has 230

acquisitions. You don’t swallow that in a year. It takes

time to integrate it and move it, and they’re moving it

and improving every day. They’re not where somebody like

you is. The greatest strengths a smaller rental company

has are the management and the ownership. But they’re

moving forward and improving every day. [Something] is

going to straighten this mess out. A major rental

company puts its foot down and says enough is enough and

takes a position and firms pricing and leads, and people

follow. I once did that in the ’80s and it worked. Or a

major rental company acquires another major rental

company and takes market share, puts a stake in the

ground and says, “I have had enough of it.”

Richardson: It is very interesting to compare

what’s happening on this side of the pond with my side.

I think that what’s happening now in America happened in

Britain 10, 15 years ago. We’ve had the rationalization

in the U.K. — we have had for the last 10 years, but

it’s starting to slow down now. All the strong

independents either sold or don’t wish to sell.

Companies are now picking off the small independents who

are weak and have lost their nerve in the marketplace.

They depressed their rates trying to compete with the

national firms and can’t reinvest in the industry, so

they basically traded themselves out of business. The

most interesting thing that’s happening in the last

couple of years is that [when the national companies’]

financial performance drops off, the City* catches up

with them — the City always catches up with them.

They’re where they are today through creative

accounting. They can stay where they are today only by

running fast. As soon as they slow down, the whole thing

collapses. If they buy market share by depressing the

rates in the market, the City loses confidence in them

and their shares drop. We’re so used to this spiraling

down of rates that it’s going to take a very brave

company to say, “This is the rate I want. Take it or

leave it.” At some point, any company — small or large —

has to say, “We’ve reached the point where we can’t go

any lower.”

Wehrman: Where will we be in, say, three

years, in regard to this issue of the independent and

national rental companies?

Richardson: It’s going to be a global market,

not just a national market, whether it’s the U.K. or the

U.S.

Stansberry: The first words out of Larry’s

mouth were service and community. Phil, from a public

company, led his comments with return on investment. I

think at the end of the day it’s probably service, but

the challenge for the independent is to get more

sophisticated, using the service standpoint as the

basis. I have more confidence in Larry’s ability to be

able to learn marketing and return on investment — I’m

not saying he doesn’t already know that — than I do with

the bigger companies’ learning about service.

Sitter: This is really interesting. Having

come from a heavy equipment background, and in rental

about 10 years on the people side of business, I’ve seen

a real lack of training. When Dan was with Hertz, they

were well-known for developing branch managers that

moved up to various division roles — there was a career

track. I don’t sense from the people I talk to from the

big companies or the smaller companies that people

generally feel there is a career track in this industry.

There’s certainly a lot of exceptions — some companies

do their own training — but I see a lot of people in

branch manager roles who don’t understand the economics

of running a business, don’t have an entrepreneurial

spirit and really aren’t sure where they’re going. I

also see a lot of people coming in with the big

companies who had been drafted from other industries and

have no industry knowledge. I’m not here to say that

they’re making bad decisions, but I think it’s hard to

make service-based long-term decisions if you have a

very narrow base of experience in the equipment

industry. If we don’t make this appealing for people,

we’re going to have less-qualified people. Somebody else

is going to get them and our industry is going to

suffer. I think this is really a place where A.R.A.

could be a catalyst. My real concern is people are not

coming to this industry and seeing a career track.

Pedersen: A number of years ago the

Engineering, Grading and Contracting Association (EGCA)

in our area put together a training facility for

[members’] employees, in cooperation with the

manufacturers. That’s what I’ve always admired about

Hertz and McDonald’s. They send an employee or future

manager to school for awhile — a week, two weeks — to

learn what we’re all about, how to do it and why we do

it, how to give good service, why we answer the phone

the way we do, why we ask the questions we do of the

customer so that person gets the proper piece of

equipment for the job. All of these things are extremely

important. We have 100-plus people but we need 125, and

so to take three of them or four or five of them and

send them to school for two weeks or whatever, it’s

really difficult. Because the people you want to send

are the ones you want to keep — they’re the ones you

need every day. Conventions like this are great, but

unfortunately, they’re not in our backyard. We [need]

schools on the West coast, the East coast and middle

America, where you could justify the expense of the time

for people. I’m being realistic. Also the safety aspect

of our business. All this equipment you can get hurt on.

We’re going to have some serious problems because of the

lack of training. I wish we had some way of training

these folks. I’d be more than willing to send them to

school. Anyone who wants to go to college and take

extension classes, we pick up the tab. Anybody wants to

learn Spanish or English, we send them to school, pay

for it — anything we can do to upgrade employees’

skills.

Petrocelli: We’ve focused on ROI, yes — how

fast could the industry grow without capital? But

everyone’s made a great point. You have to have a career

path for the people, spend more on training and

concentrate on customer service.

Stansberry: We need to establish a “community

of rental” so that we can ask others we are not

competing with what they’re doing, what they are paying

employees, and how we can learn from them. Connie might

have someone in Atlanta she could talk to, for instance,

not here in Orlando, so there would be no competitive

issues involved. Store tours are great. We can ask

questions and see what we can incorporate in our own

stores tomorrow. I think that’s your biggest challenge,

Chris, to reestablish that community of rental.

Alm: That is what the magazine is for — we’ll

give you a success story and a store tour just about

every month!

Neffle: I see this as an opportunity for the

American Rental Association to help the independents,

when I hear that they lack the ability to interpret the

information systems, develop marketing programs,

training. I think this is where the association can be a

great service.

Kaplan: You should have done that 10 years

ago. Do it today. Do it as fast as you can do it.

Miller: Is online training a possibility? I

only have 12 employees, so if I lose an employee for a

week or two, it is just devastating to me. We do only

about $2 million a year, but every person I have is

critical.

Neffle: We’re just getting in the

certification program with the party and event industry

and we do have the option of taking that over the

Internet. Our partner, the University of Illinois, is

helping us do that. We have 91 employees enrolled in the

certification program now. To get the actual

certification is probably a 12-month process. We’re

still developing some of the disciplines in the course

work. We’ve done focus groups on general tool and

construction to see if it’s viable to move ahead with

that, and we’re looking at our resources to see if

there’s a real need for that type of program. What I’m

hearing here today is very encouraging.

Sitter: There are some encouraging things on

that front. The younger generation people do very well

in online training and computer-based training, unlike

my generation. We liked to be in class and have direct

contact with the instructor. I think there are a lot of

things that could be done there.

Kaplan: What’s going to happen to the A.R.A.

members and the rental industry in five years? The top

five rental companies today have a market share of 19.8

percent. That goes up to, like, 40 percent in five

years. The [typical] A.R.A. member is fine. The

industrial rental companies, the midsize companies

between RER rank No. 10 and No. 200, with rental revenue

of $165 million to $2 million, are at risk. All the

other members of the A.R.A. are fine. Those between 10

and 200 are in direct competition with the rental

giants. Everybody else is not in the same customer base,

so they’re fine — they provide good service at the local

level, the giants don’t want to touch them and they go

on forever. It’s that 190 companies that are going to

have difficulty. The big ones are going to get a lot

bigger.

Alm: Dan, Ian mentioned earlier that the City

is down on the bigs in the U.K. because of their

financial performance, and the same thing has happened

here. The bloom is off the rose — the multiples have

eroded, the stock has plummeted, there are no IPOs,

nobody is in registration, the venture capital market is

leery — it’s difficult to locate capital. So my question

is, does the fact that the independents don’t have to

report their financials in this country actually protect

them? Larry goes to the coffee shop and sees his banker

there. He doesn’t have to try to please the Street or

woo venture capital, he just goes to his local bank.

Kaplan: The whole issue is the customer. What

does the customer want? Take General Motors. At Hertz, I

signed them to a sole-source contract, 143 plants,

probably doing about $40 million a year [with them].

They’re not going to deal locally. So these national

accounts are going to be worldwide accounts — 100, 200

locations, and all this huge spending. Now, if you can

get a customer who’s going to give you incremental

revenue that the local person doesn’t have, you become

the low-cost producer, because you have efficiencies

that the local person doesn’t have. You have business at

the national level and at the local level. With that

kind of [nationally based] business, you have different

economics. The big account is not going to go to the

local level and negotiate 50 different agreements.

They’re going to go to one company and do one worldwide

agreement.

Klarin: It seems I hear a lot of criticism by

the small rental guys about the big rental guys and the

big rental guys about the small rental guys. But we have

an awful lot to learn from each other. Profitable

decisions are not made in the boardroom. Profit comes

from the branch stores and direct dealings with the

customer, and the little rental guys know how to do

that. The certification program that is currently in

progress in the A.R.A. is very positive, and can be

expanded to the construction and the general tool rental

people. I totally agree that service is the name of the

game. In the rental industry it’s service, service,

service. I always ask my customers, “Would you rather

buy your wedding ring from Sears or from Tiffany’s?”

There will always be a place for the small fella, and I

agree with Dan that there will always be a place for the

big fella, and the thing is to cooperate with each other

and not knock each other or look down on each other.

Miller: We’re no threat to the big players.

They all think we’re their best friends. We rerent to

the big players when they won’t share with each other.

We do a lot of business with all of them.

Anderson: I’ve heard the same comment from

many parts of the country. A lot of independent rental

companies are working with the big players like that.

Pedersen: We do not rerent to anybody. We

never have. Our attitude is, if you don’t have it, buy

it or send them to us. As a result, the customer comes

to us. I drive by rental centers and see four or five

lifts on the lot, and we don’t have a one. They’re all

out. We have bought a lot of large equipment this winter

just to keep up with the demand. It’s all being driven

by the inability of the consolidator to provide the

service.

Fouts: We have a good relationship with RSC

and United and others in the Kansas City area. I have

often thought that maybe I ought to get into the big

iron, but I look at the return on investment and it’s

not here. And that’s where they’re fighting it out on

rental rates. So why even get into it? I’m much better

off where I am, making good profits and doing very well.

Dan said we should have gotten into training 10 years

ago. How much do we invest in our employees? They’re our

biggest asset. These certification focus groups are

really important now, and I hope we do bring it off,

because certification in those areas will be a great

advantage for those rental companies.

Wehrman: As a new person in the rental

industry and seeing the trends and the diversity of

economic drivers and the different sizes of companies

that compete in this industry, I wonder if we have

self-created the problem of large and small? And how do

we overcome this psychology of large and small in order

to get to increase the appeal of the industry to the

market? If we keep thinking in terms of “we and they,”

we may not be seeing the larger picture, which is

increasing the overall appeal of the rental industry to

the consumer. How effectively are we building the appeal

of the equipment rental industry?

Pedersen: This is one area where I applaud

the consolidators. Over the last four years, those folks

have come in and bought so many marginal companies and

have put those companies on the right track. They’ve

cleaned up the facilities, gotten rid of the junk

equipment and brought in brand-new equipment and raised

the level of our industry to its highest peak ever. And

they have forced people like myself to upgrade my fleet,

in order to compete. Five years ago, a lot of my

competition had equipment that was 15 or 20 years old.

Now, United, for instance, is setting a standard of

three years, and my fleet is getting pretty close to

that — we have spent millions of dollars to do that. And

my customers appreciate that.

Petrocelli: I never realized there was as

much “we and they” as I have heard today, and I find

that fascinating, because we consolidators are only made

up of smaller players that we were able to purchase. I

didn’t realize there was this much angst about rerent.

We prefer not to go to the direct competition, of

course, United and Sunbelt and the other large players,

but I think in the future you’ll see more alliances like

that with the smaller companies in order to get more out

of that asset.

Pedersen: Well, I think that animosity

between the large players and the independents has grown

when, for instance, we have seen them come onto our yard

and try to hire our people away from us. When

consolidation first started, we thought we might lose 10

percent of our workforce that we have spent the money to

train and develop in this industry — but instead we’ve

picked up about 10, in the past year!

Wehrman: How do we create a different way of

looking at it besides this “we and they” and concentrate

on the positives instead of the negatives? How do we

increase the appeal of the rental industry? I would be

interested in hearing what you have to say about the

U.K., Ian. What is the overall image of the industry

there?

Richardson: From what I am hearing, it sounds

like the U.K. is the 51st state! So much of what is

going on here we have over there as well. We have a lot

of people in a very small land mass. I believe 20

percent of my customers work outside my geographic area.

So we have set up a rental network system. If a customer

of mine is working 80 miles away, I recommend a rental

store to him. I know exactly the level of service he can

expect, because they are all in the HAE and we all abide

by the same ground rules. It has been very well-received

by the customers. The small and medium-sized

construction firms like dealing with the small- and

medium-sized rental firms. They don’t like having to go

to the national companies.

Wehrman: What is the future of the small,

independent rental companies?

Klarin: They will grow and prosper.

Wehrman: And the national rental companies?

Klarin: They will grow and prosper.

Stansberry: A lot of people I deal with don’t

want to deal with General Motors. The independents who

are dealing with small contractors and homeowners will

be fine. And the 190 mid-size companies that Dan thinks

are at risk, I think they will be just fine, too,

because there is a big-enough pie — if they all just

keep their eye on the ball — there’s plenty of room for

us all.

Wehrman: What’s your projection of what

percentage of the industry will be represented by

national companies and by independents? Will the

movement toward consolidation level off or keep growing?

Petrocelli: We look at the U.K. and the rest

of Europe, as well as Japan, and the rental industry

here grew about 5 percent last year. That’s the first

time it’s gone into single digits in a while, but it’s

about $25 billion, let’s say. And that’s about 25

percent of the market — it’s roughly a $100 billion

market in the United States. My belief is the

fundamentals will continue and rental will continue to

grow, because it’s a more efficient way to build. It

makes sense. The fundamentals are good. And there’s room

for everybody. When I got into this industry three years

ago, the manufacturers were wondering if this was really

a legitimate distribution channel, and now they are

thinking strategically about how much they want going

into the rental channel, how much they want to diversify

their risk. I think the thing we have going with Lowe’s,

for instance, gets the word out. The average Lowe’s

store does 50,000 transactions a month. We’re making

sure we put rental-trained people in those stores. We’re

trying to build our brand and get the awareness up and

leverage the equipment, and develop career paths. It’s

making rental more commonplace to the average person in

the United States.

Anderson: How is the rental industry being

influenced by the decisions of manufacturers to come

into the rental industry?

Petrocelli: As rental becomes a larger and

larger channel, the rental industry picks up power. I

think we will see more consolidation of manufacturers,

like the Case–New Holland merger, because they want to

broaden their product line [and reduce fixed costs].

They will want to [pay attention to] the small

independents because they buy a little every year, while

the big companies may buy big in one year and then go

somewhere else or not buy, and the fixed costs

associated with manufacturing will make them think

strategically about the small companies.

Stansberry: I think one thing the

independents can thank the large companies for is that

they have driven the costs down. I am seeing smaller

independent companies buying products for less than RSC

paid four years ago. Now, I imagine Phil and the other

large players are beating them up even more now, but the

fact remains that the small independents are buying at a

lot better price because of it. The manufacturers are

realizing that there are still 10,000 or 12,000

independents out there, and if we are going to sell to

them, we’re going to have to sell at a price where they

can compete with the big boys.

Klarin : A reader asked me what the A.R.A.

was doing “to protect us.” And my answer was that the

A.R.A. is not there to protect you, it’s there to help

you learn and grow. That’s why I think it is important

to have the strength of the larger companies in the

membership, and involved in the association.

Wehrman: Where do you see the industry in

three years?

Sitter: Huge and growing. I see great

opportunity in new areas that were never considered part

of the rental industry as we know it. New markets that

have never been tapped. Agriculture, mining equipment on

cradle-to-grave leases. But I think the companies that

are going to make the most money are going to have to

service their own equipment and not rely on third-party

service providers. They’re going to have to provide the

product, the service, the capital — the whole thing.

Petrocelli: I see a lot of opportunities

also, for companies of all sizes, in a lot of niche

markets, different specialties. I think it will be a

more mainstream industry, as well. I think the big box

retailers will change the industry, too — Home Depot

wants to put in 1,000 rental stores. Lowe’s wants them

in a majority of the stores. People will put more into

the facilities and there will be a rationalization.

Service will get better because it’s going to have to.

And the consolidators that have been in turmoil, now

that the economy is slowing, they will get back and

focus on the basics — when you are growing that fast and

raising capital, you just can’t do it all. Each of the

majors will probably focus a little more on specialties.

We’ll lessen our focus on the larger heavy equipment and

do more of the lighter and general.

Neffle: I agree with everything I’ve heard.

Growth will continue to be strong. Retail-based rental

will grow. On the party rental end of it, regional

players will develop. It will be easy to nationalize the

structure and power systems rental, but the tabletop

rentals will continue to be local.

Miller: The competition I see ahead over the

next three years will be the independent owners who have

sold out and now their non-competes have expired and

they will be coming back into the industry. They have

seen how the big players do it and they also know how

the independent mind works, and they will be coming back

in — they will know both sides.

Klarin: I agree completely with Connie. I

know a lot of those people! I think consolidation will

continue at a slower rate over the next three years.

Richardson: It has been a very interesting

morning for me. We have exactly the same issues and

concerns across the water. Training is a key issue,

staff retention, the threat of the nationals is

ever-present — but they will be reduced in numbers this

year, I think. The Home Depot-type of rental experiment

was tried in the U.K. in the late ’80s and failed

miserably. It’s being tried again and I think it will

fail again — sorry about that, Phil.

Pedersen: Well, 42 months is not a very long

time to have a business, and these folks have not been

through a recession yet. We’ve been through a lot of

them. When you rent to a single customer base, and that

customer base is very recession-sensitive — construction

— they’re gone. If we have a major recession in the next

three to five years, those public companies are doomed.

I’ve warned all of my managers what could happen in a

recession. We are spending between $500,000 and $750,000

at this show — we want to be sure we have every drill,

chain saw and shovel that those folks don’t even want to

deal with. That business is cash that comes in the door

every day and you can put in the bank, make your payroll

and pay the rent. You can’t do that on a credit basis,

working with General Motors. Look at Daimler-Chrysler.

They’re laying off 26,000 people. If you have a contract

with those guys, you aren’t going to be renting

anything. I think if we get into a recession, we’ll see

a whole lot of stores available for purchase. We’re

opening stores as soon as we can get people trained and

ready. We opened a new store last year and we want to

open two or three new ones this year. There are voids in

many communities where they really do need rental

centers. The consolidators haven’t affected us really at

all.

Anderson: Every year Rental Management does a

random-sample survey of readers, and one of the things

we have seen in the last four years is a polarization of

the size of the company. Where there used to be a

distribution across the spectrum, now the industry has

moved to the ends — very large companies and a very

large number of one and two locations. I think what may

be happening here is a return to the center, in terms of

the size of companies — because of the dynamic of the

non-competes that are expiring and the new people who

are catching the entrepreneurial spirit. They’ve learned

from a national company and now they want to put that

knowledge to use. They have a level of expertise and

experience and they also see niche possibilities to

exploit. I think a lot is likely to occur over the next

three to five years.

Fouts: Technology. E-mail and e-commerce are

becoming as commonplace as a fax machine in rental

companies, and I think that’s going to continue to

develop to levels we don’t even know about yet, and that

could all be in the next three years, very easily. And

in the marketing area, I think rental companies are

finally waking up to the need to market themselves — not

only to their customers but to the workforce out there.

I’m optimistic about the future — I think it’s going to

be great — and I kind of welcome back those people who

have been out there on non-competes and are now coming

back in.

Stansberry: We’re looking at survival of the

fittest over the next several years. I think the big

guys are going to go through another consolidation,

where maybe the top 20 become the top five. I think

there’s plenty of room for the mom-and-pop independent

that’s flying under their radar. And there’s plenty of

room for the independent guy in the construction and

industrial markets, too. But it’s survival of the

fittest, and just going in every day as you have and

answering the phone from the customer who saw your

Yellow Pages ad is not going to be enough.

Alm: One of the things I am always very

interested in watching is the financial development of

the industry, and as Larry says, a recession could be an

interesting thing to watch, in terms of the public

companies’ capital structures. If you’re heavily

leveraged and lose cash flow, you’re in trouble. I would

encourage everyone here — and all of our readers — to

keep raising questions that we can explore. The thing

about journalism is that you are always watching things

in a state of becoming and reporting on