When Noah Crowley was 12 or 13, he sat in on his first Peer Executive Groups meeting in Chicago. He didn’t even know what it was. All he knew was that his dad did consulting for an industry. To a kid who loved working with his hands, it looked a lot like hanging out.
On episode 122 of The Rental Roundtable, I sat down with Noah Crowley, Operations Manager at Peer Executive Groups. His dad, Dan Crowley, founded PEG back in 2001 and has been on this podcast five times now. Noah worked his way from an ops analyst role into the integrator seat, and today he facilitates groups, delivers PEG’s quarterly economic updates, and runs EOS implementations.
We talked about working with his dad, why peer groups matter more now that AI can answer almost any question, what members are seeing in the economy, and how EOS turns chaos into a plan.
The Rental Industry Has a Way of Pulling You Back
Noah didn’t take a straight line into rental. He spent a year in aerospace engineering at Purdue before realizing it kept him in his room studying math when he loved music and people. He moved to Temple University in Philadelphia, studied sociology, economics, and French, and played in a bunch of bands.
COVID hit during his senior year. He stepped to the side and spent about four years in music, interning at studios, doing live sound at a theater, and working at record stores, all while helping Dan with his podcasts and attending PEG’s Meeting of the Minds summits.
So why come back? Music is a grind of late nights. And looking at his dad’s business from the outside, Noah saw a visionary with off-the-wall energy who needed a solid, consistent, routine counterpart. He felt he had something to offer in helping accelerate the business. Then the people of the industry won him over.
“Coming in as a 26-year-old at the time, I was afraid of being seen as young, dumb, just whatever. And I’ve had opportunities within this role that have just been really amazing in terms of facilitating groups and actually being a point of value in the room.” Noah Crowley, Operations Manager, Peer Executive Groups, (11:13)
Like Nic Liu on episode 121, he had early exposure to rental, went off to do other things, and got pulled back in. This is a merit-based industry. Show up, stay curious, and do the work, and people make room for you at the table fast.
Wasting Time Together Is Part of the Work
I asked Noah what he made of peer groups as a kid. Whenever someone asked what his dad did, the answer was consulting.
“He goes away on these trips and sort of goes out to restaurants. I had the hardest time fathoming the work of it.” (5:34)
I can relate. As an engineering student, I couldn’t understand why salespeople existed. If you had a good product, you just wrote the specs. I’ve since learned relationships sometimes matter many times more than the product.
As he matured, Noah started to see the value of being together and having those conversations, along with everything that goes into a good meeting and the topics members bring to the table. He also realized he loves bringing people together and inspiring good discussion.
If you have ever skipped an industry dinner because it felt like time away from the yard, this is worth sitting with. Sometimes the time that looks wasted is where the best conversations happen.
Working With Family Means Unlearning Your Childhood
A lot of rental companies are generational businesses, so I asked Noah what it’s like working with his dad. He called it a loaded question, and said he hopes Dan listens to this one.
“Sort of being on an equal footing and undoing the entirety of my childhood to a degree, ’cause now we’re two adults working together, running a business together at that.” (13:21)
Traveling with Dan, Noah finally saw the network his dad had built over the last 15 to 20 years. He was honest that it isn’t all sunshine and flowers. There are frustrating moments and messiness that come with a parent-child relationship. But there have been big moments where they grew together and learned what works for each other. It’s not the relationship most people have with a parent at that age, and he called it very special.
If you’re in a family business, boundaries are a big part of doing it well. For another take on the second generation stepping in, check out Brittany Haas on episode 110.
AI Can Answer Questions, but It Can’t Be Your Peer Group
Why do peer groups still matter in 2026? Noah started with AI. You can ask it every question and even get benchmarks and fleet data. But there’s a human element, and the emotion of the experience, that only people who have gone through it can give you.
Noah’s own college graduation was virtual, and he feels like he missed out. When you fly out, spend the time, and see people so similar to you, it makes a big difference. PEG even sits in a peer group for peer groups, and he called those meetings one of the more refreshing parts of his schedule.
Human connection gets more important as the world gets more isolated. I told AI my leg hurt, and it said, “I’ve been there, brother.” You don’t have legs. These tools are useful, but they can’t relate, nor do they solve every problem.
“It’s helpful to have other people that aren’t going to be just the most perfect logic talking to you... that are flawed just the same and have learned from their mistakes and accept failure.” (19:11)
Running an independent rental company means making a lot of decisions alone. A room of people living the same life as you, in non-competitive markets, is something no chatbot can replace. Dan walked through how PEG’s groups work on episode 76.
How Rental Is Doing Depends on Where You Look
I asked Noah what he’s seeing as we recorded at the end of September. With the war in Iran, oil prices have been erratic, and a huge topic for members is pricing fuel so deliveries stay profitable.
Single-unit residential housing has been soft for years, hitting operators who serve homeowners and smaller contractors. Multi-unit work is still growing, though starting to slow. Data centers are a huge topic, especially for specialty utilities like plumbing for water cooling and electrical for power generation. Noah said some members have landed huge data center deals that have “made a world of a difference for them,” but they’re not building everywhere.
Regionally, the Southeast and Texas are growing at a crazy rate, Ohio and Michigan keep doing well, and California is soft for a lot of members. So how’s rental doing? It depends on your region and your customer mix. For a framework on reading where your own business sits in the cycle, Dan laid one out on episode 90.
Labor Is Still the Constraint Everyone Talks About
On the qualitative side, the theme Noah hears constantly is labor. Mechanics are especially tough.
“Figuring out how to train up mechanics and giving them opportunities, especially if you think they have the right core value fit, let’s say, but they’re not educationally all the way there yet.” (23:21)
Members are also hunting for outside sales reps. With the homeowner market soft, more companies want to go out to job sites and win larger contractors, who tend to rent on longer-term contracts and usually take better care of the equipment.
AI is starting to help at the edges: technicians searching huge manuals instead of paging through them, and sales teams finding new construction starts before competitors do. AI can’t turn a wrench, but it can answer the phone after hours when nobody else is. That’s the kind of gap we built Quinn to help fill, so your team’s capacity goes further.
EOS Turns the Chaos Into a Playbook
Noah knew nothing about EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, coming in. He read Traction immediately, and with his engineering background, it just made sense. It takes the blob that is running a small business and breaks it into steps and processes you can track.
PEG runs on it, with weekly L10 meetings, quarterlies, and metrics that drive behaviors. PEG also does EOS implementations for members, especially businesses with 10 or fewer employees, where it gets into people problems and, above all, accountability.
“You have to communicate things sometimes like seven times before it’s really heard.” (30:12)
Noah said clarity is the biggest value of EOS, and the hardest part is the discipline to stick with it, like going for a run when you don’t feel like it. We use EOS at Quipli too. As a CEO, it’s easy to assume that because you told someone once, they got it. A framework gives every person a clear job and a playbook. If you want to start, buy Traction, or call Noah.
Lift Up Your People
I close every episode by asking for the best career advice a guest has received. Noah went back to a conversation with a friend’s dad, who runs a business of about 200 people. He told Noah that most of his job as CEO was being like a psychologist: learning how to get people to work to their best ability and giving them inspiration.
“Just focusing on how you can uplift the people that work for you and make their lives easier so that you make your own life easier.” (32:43)
That’s quite the transformation from the engineer who thought dinner was a waste of time, and I’m on the same journey. The most important thing you can do is understand what drives the people around you. At Quipli, we built our platform for operators like you, so the busywork gets lighter and more of your energy goes to your people. If that sounds like what your team needs, come see it in action.
