PHOENIX, July 22 — Parul Butala has been promoted to president of AMERCO® Real Estate Co. (AREC), the real estate arm of U-Haul® Holding Co.
The appointment was made on July 17.
Butala has been part of the U-Haul family since 1994. She spent many years developing her skills as a staff architect for the AREC construction group. She joined the U-Haul Risk Management team for a brief stint in the early 2000s before returning to real estate.
Since 2019, Butala has served as AREC Director of Land Use and Planning.
“I am honored and grateful for the opportunity to serve as AREC President,” Butala said. “I would like to thank (U-Haul CEO) Joe Shoen for his confidence in me and for this opportunity. Over the past 30 years, I have had the privilege of learning from Joe, my colleagues, and the many talented people across our Company. Those experiences have shaped both my career and my approach to leadership.”
AMERCO Real Estate Co. was started in 1974 to manage the growing real estate portfolio and development services of U-Haul Holding Co. (then AMERCO). Today, that includes 2,431 owned-and-operated locations across all 50 states and 10 Canadian provinces. U-Haul is the third largest self-storage operator in North America with 1,136,000 rentable storage units and 99 million square feet of self-storage space.
U-Haul is in its 81st year of operations as the industry leader in do-it-yourself moving and self-storage. U-Haul International, AREC and other subsidiaries of U-Haul Holding Co. are headquartered in Phoenix, Ariz., where they support a network of more than 25,000 U-Haul rental locations serving millions of customers across the U.S. and Canada.
“My goal is to strengthen communication across our teams, better support our field operations, and continue improving the way we acquire, develop, and deliver properties,” Butala added. “I believe our greatest strength is our people. I look forward to listening, learning, and working alongside our team to foster a culture built on trust, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.”
Butala holds a Master of Science in Architecture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and a Master of Business Administration from Arizona State University.
A resident of Chandler, Ariz., Butala has been married to Valmiki Patel, a software engineer at Intel®, for 32 years. They have two children: daughter Riya Patel, 26, who received a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Vanderbilt University and is pursuing a PhD in cellular and molecular biology at the University of Washington; and son Shivan Patel, 23, who graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science and now works as a software engineer in the Bay Area.
Butala assumes the AREC role previously held by Matt Braccia.