Building a Track Record of Success in a Niche Market

On ELFA’s 60th anniversary, a 30-year ELFA member company reflects on the past and looks to the future 

THE YEAR 2021 MARKS ELFA’S 60TH ANNIVERSARY. We’re celebrating by taking a look back as well as forward, imagining what the future will hold. In this issue we talk to Larry Stevens, President & CEO of Med One Capital, which is celebrating 30 years as a member of ELFA. We’ll talk to other companies celebrating “milestone” ELFA membership anniversaries throughout 2021. 

2021 marks Med One Capital’s 30th year as an ELFA member.  To what do you attribute your company’s longevity in the marketplace?

We believe that we have been in this market for 30 years largely due to two factors:

1. Med One brings a unique and customer-centric service to our customer base. Given that we have chosen to serve the acute care hospital market, we have a very limited market. Our ability to provide real value added through our creativity, simplicity and responsiveness has allowed us to stay in this segment of the market. Because our customers appreciate what we do, we have enjoyed a remarkable rate of customers doing multiple transactions with us, and we have been able to grow our company without having to stray very far from our chosen market segment.

2. The company was founded in 1991 by the original owners—myself and Brent Allen. We decided early on that we were not trying to build our company to sell but to remain in the marketplace, continuing to serve our customers in the way we have always envisioned it should be done. 

We are now in the process of handing the keys over to the next generation. Our leadership team is committed to the same values that we have held as it relates to what we do, and we are very comfortable that they will continue on with this legacy.



Why is it important for your company to be a member of ELFA?

I have been in the equipment leasing business since 1967, and Brent has been in leasing since 1978. Our careers have been centered in this industry. When we started Med One, we felt that the best way to demonstrate legitimacy and credibility to our customers and other business partners was to be members of the premier organization that serves and represents the equipment finance industry. That reasoning continues to this day. Being members of ELFA provides us so many benefits in terms of education, advocacy and access to resources and key contacts that our investment in the association has repaid us manyfold.


The equipment finance industry is evolving. What are some ways you’ve seen the industry evolve over the course of your career? In what ways would you like to see or do you expect to see the industry evolve by ELFA’s 100th anniversary in 2061?

When I first started in this business, literally the only way to do business in any location away from the main office was to establish a fully staffed branch office. That was expensive and cumbersome. Things begin to change somewhat when fax machines were invented and overnight package delivery came into being. Internet technology has totally revolutionized the way we can do business today versus how it had to be done in 1967. 

Over the years, I have seen our industry have to adapt to changes in tax law, changes in accounting philosophy, and changes in the way equipment and technology are manufactured and produced. If you are in the day-to-day fray, you don’t notice these things so dramatically. It is only when you step back and reflect upon where we have all come from and how our industry and our lives have changed over time that you realize how dramatically things have evolved.

I have always believed in the entrepreneurial spirit that is at the core of our industry. My hope for the future of the industry is that the entrepreneurism that created it and helped it to grow and survive will once again emerge as the driving force of the association. Having built my career in this industry, I can think of nothing else that I would have rather done.

ELFA Through the Years

Watch a video timeline of the association’s notable achievements from 1961 to present at www.elfaonline.org/60th.