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July 4, 2015 • Vol. IXX • No. 14 • 470 Maryland Drive • Ft. Washington, PA 19034 • 215-885-2900 • Toll Free 800-523-2200 • Fax 215-885-2910
4
Inside
Congress Urged to Lift Crude Oil Export Ban
communications, described as an “absolute rabbit warren.” “The way it was set up, you couldn’t always get through from one part of the building to another,” she said. “You would go in there and you would be completely disoriented because you would run into basically dead ends.” But now a $21 million renovation project is under way to recreate Franklin Hall as the new Media School, with the opening to a new
As many as 440,000 new jobs will be created by suppliers to shale oil and gas operations nationally by 2018 if the ban on US exports of crude oil were lifted this year, according to testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Small Business Committee June 17. Dale Leppo, chairman of Leppo Inc., an Ohiobased construction equipment dealer and rental company, testified on the export ban’s negative impacts on his company, on the entire energy supply chain. He also cited jobs and growth that would occur if it were lifted. When the crude oil and natural gas markets weakened dramatically late in 2014, more than half of the state’s drilling rigs were mothballed. The slowdown caused his company to put an aggressive 2015 hiring plan on hold awaiting a market turnaround, Leppo told the committee. He added that Leppo Inc. subsidiary Razor Rents, which serves energy operators from its Carrollton, Ohio, base, increased its rental equipment fleet by more than 200 machines in 2014, up to the point when drilling activity turned negative at the end of the year, but has added few units since. Lower drilling activity in Ohio's Utica Shale would be turned positive if the state’s producers could sell their products on the global market, he
see UNIVERSITY page 82
see LEPPO page 28
MacAllister Breaks Ground on New HQ...24
A $21 million renovation project is under way to recreate Franklin Hall as the new Media School, with the opening to a new class of students set for August 2016.
IRA Y Celebrates 15 Years...100
Crews Revitalize Franklin Hall Back to Hey-Day Status By Lori Tobias CEG CORRESPONDENT
Fre y & S ons Conduc ts Reti rement Sale. .. 104
Table of Contents ............4 Wheel Loaders, Tool Carriers & Attachments Section ......................57-76 Paving Section ..........83-93 Auction Section ......97-107 Business Calendar ........98 Advertisers Index ........106
In its heyday, the English-Gothic style Franklin Hall was the stately structure standing sentinel at the gateway to Indiana University Bloomington campus. Built in 1907, the building initially served as the campus library. But over the years, several additions in different styles turned the building into what Anne Kibbler, university director of
Industry Confidence Remains Strong in May The Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation (the Foundation) released the May 2015 Monthly Confidence Index for the Equipment Finance Industry (MCI-EFI). Designed to collect leadership data, the index reports a qualitative assessment of both the prevailing business con-
ditions and expectations for the future as reported by key executives from the $903 billion equipment finance sector. Overall, confidence in the equipment finance market is 67.5, slightly lower than the April index of 70.7. When asked about the outlook for the future, MCI-EFI survey
respondent Valerie Hayes Jester, president, Brandywine Capital Associates Inc., said, “We are experiencing strong application volume, which we attribute to more of our customers deciding to move forward with projects that have been ‘on hold.’ Competition is brisk in the mar-
ketplace, but equipment financing seems to be the preferred method of acquisition in this quarter.” May 2015 Survey Results: The overall MCI-EFI is 67.5, slightly lower than the April index of 70.7. see ELFA page 78