Discover What an American River Rentals Franchise Opportunity Can Do for You and Your Community

Kent Hansen

I knew as a child that someday I wanted to work for myself – entrepreneurship and recreation are in my blood. I remember as a little kid in grade school selling hand-drawn bookmarks to friends that I’d bring rafting on the weekends.

As a young adult I designed and patented several practical prototypes and started multiple small businesses to help fund my lifelong philosophy of work hard to play hard. Throughout my younger years my small business endeavors taught me invaluable lessons that I hold near and dear to myself today.

I’ll never forget the feeling of having had all my dreams come true after becoming a rafting business owner – and then hearing that in my first year that I was not going to be allowed to open due to the pandemic. Rather than fear I felt determination.

Despite dark days in my past – what I’ve learned through heartache and broken bones is that it all builds character and that you must embrace the process. I was able to write a new business plan that reinvented many of the raft rental processes and procedures and argued that we were a vital part of the community’s safety as stewards of the river.

ARR finally got the green light from California’s Public Health Director to open a month after our targeted opening date. Regardless of the month lost this still felt like a huge success.

We’d gone through 3 levels of approval because our business was considered far too large a draw in Sacramento and it was known that we attracted customers from all over the world.