YOUR PARTNERS
Experience you can trust.
People you can relate to.
At Flathead Partners, you won’t find polished jargon or Ivy League egos. You’ll find two business partners who’ve walked in your shoes — practical, experienced, and deeply committed to helping you navigate this next chapter with confidence and care. Between us, we’ve built, managed, and sold multiple successful companies over the past 40 years. We know firsthand what it means to pour decades into a family business.
MANAGING PARTNER
Troy Gabriel
Troy has been a life-long entrepreneur, learning at the knee of his father and grandfather, both entrepreneurs. Troy has been COO of several companies, including a publicly traded equipment rental company, as well as several family-owned businesses. He is a farmer, a strategic thinker and an operations optimizer.
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Troy has experience in the equipment rental, manufacturing, banking and commercial real estate industries. His experience in equipment rental, as well as being COO of a $750 million publicly traded company, included involvement in the acquisition of many smaller equipment rental businesses across the country.
Troy brings his entrepreneurial mindset to our engagements as well as his strategic and tactical thinking and his broad experience over a 37-year career. Throughout his career, Troy has been a lead participant in raising well over $1 billion in equity and debt.
Troy graduated from Capital University in Columbus, OH with a bachelor’s degree in business in 1987. In addition to Flathead Partners, Troy is a real estate investor, a farmer and was in the equipment rental business. He was co-founder and CEO of Franklin Equipment LLC. Starting in 2008 with one location ($6mm in revenue), Franklin grew from one store to 20 stores in 7 states across the Midwest and South ($125mm in revenue) and was ultimately sold to United Rentals in 2021.
MANAGING PARTNER
Jon Usher
Jon brings a keen understanding of business and finance and M&A skills to his clients and the clients of Flathead Partners.
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After graduating Summa Cum Laude in 1979 from Butler University with degrees in Economics and Accounting, and a 10-year stint at Arthur Andersen and his first CFO role, Jon joined Troy in 1997 at newly formed NationsRent. Over the next three years Troy and Jon helped NationsRent complete 60 acquisitions across the country, go public, raise over $1.5 billion in equity and debt capital and grow from $20 million in revenue to $750 million.
Let’s talk about what’s next.
Every business is different. Whether you’re planning for years ahead or looking to sell today, we always start by listening to your story and understanding your goals.