The RTO Show "Let's talk Rent to Own"

RTO Legend: Kevin Quinn of Quality Rentals

• Pete Shau • Season 7 • Episode 10

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A 24-year-old franchisee walks into a brand-new industry and ends up helping to save it. That’s the arc of Kevin Quinn, who went from learning how to rent a $499 VCR to leading APRO through a political and tax storm that could have erased rent-to-own from the map.

We trace Kevin’s start in 1982, the scrappy early days of rack stereos and weekly payments, and the hard truths about why banks and premium vendors kept their distance. He shares the operational and cultural shift he learned from APRO mentors—structure, standards, and a shared philosophy—and how a small group of franchisees formed Quality Rentals, cross‑guaranteeing each other to build credibility and buying power. The story accelerates when Kevin steps into APRO leadership just as Chairman Henry B. Gonzalez launches hearings against RTO and the IRS tries to reclassify the model as a disguised credit sale. That change would have crippled cash flow and buried operators.

Behind the scenes, we unpack the strategy: a three-front campaign across public relations, federal lobbying, and tax litigation with heavyweight counsel. You’ll hear how dealer funding, customer petitions, and smart allies in Congress led to a pivotal IRS ruling recognizing RTO as a lease with depreciation, later improved to a three-year schedule. Those wins didn’t just quiet critics—they unlocked vendor relationships, steadied lenders, and legitimized rent-to-own as a consumer access model. Along the way, Kevin reflects on the role of his wife, the friendships forged under pressure, and the pride of seeing his daughters revive an RR wheel-and-tire store and earn Women of the Year honors.

If you care about how industries are built—through policy, persistence, and people—this story delivers the blueprint. Subscribe, share this episode with a colleague who loves retail history or public policy, and leave a review with the one lesson you think today’s operators can’t afford to ignore.

APRO
Association of Progressive Rental Organizations

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello and welcome to the RTO show. I'm your host, Pete Chow, and today I have the pleasure of talking to another one of RTO legends, somebody who's done a lot in this industry, Kevin Quinn, all the way from Washington. Thank you so much, Kevin, for being here today. How is everything going over there in Washington?

SPEAKER_01:

Fantastic. Absolutely perfect.

SPEAKER_00:

Good. Love to hear it.

SPEAKER_01:

Everything's fine.

SPEAKER_00:

How's the weather?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so summer's really good out here. We're now in what we call Indian summer. We have days here though that sometimes are a little hazy because of uh uh uh forest fire smoke that comes out of Canada and other parts of northern Washington. But uh today's a gorgeous day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I can tell you what, in Florida, it's always hot and muggy. But I love it. I love it. I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. Oh, oh, I need to be where you are. Yeah so you know, one of the reasons that we're talking to Kevin Quinn, one of the reasons that we have him on the series as a legend is because you got started in the rent to own a while ago. And not only that, you were a huge part of APRO showing just how important it is to be in a group, to be in an advocacy, to do what we can for this industry, and then kind of doing it yourself. So let's go back to the beginning. What got you in rent to own? When you started, rent to own wasn't what it is now. Rent to own is almost like a household name now, but back then you guys were pioneering your way through this. When did you get started at Rent to Own? And what made you decide rent to own is where I want to be?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, in 1981, late 81, my brother was a uh CPA in Tacoma, Washington. And he had two uh clients that owned an upstart rent-to-own company in Tacoma. And he gave me a phone call and asked me if I wanted to, I was selling cars at the time here in central Washington, Moses Lake, and wanted to know if I wanted to come and get into this rent-to-own business in Tacoma. And I said, sure, I'll come and talk to these guys. So I my wife and I had a meeting with them in January, uh, first part of January, they decided to sell us a franchise, and the franchise they sold us was their seventh store, number seven in their chain. And um I was the first one, and I was 24 years old, didn't know anything about television stereos or anything like that. And um, anyways, I I packed up and left selling cars and moved in with my brother and his wife and and worked for these guys for about a month or two in their uh in one of their stores to learn the business, and we opened our first store in March of 1982. Now, was this quality rentals? No, it was called primetime rentals at that time. Um and at that time when we opened, um the industry, though those two gentlemen found out about the industry of going to an April convention um that was down in Texas, and they met a a um uh met a gentleman that was a large dealer in in Austin um who uh who kind of led them along and and got them introduced to who the finance arms were at that time and so on and so forth, and they uh they brought it back to the state of Washington. So it was really brand new. In fact, um the products we handled, we only handled televisions and appliances and um and stereo equipment, and stereo equipment was still rack stereos, those ones that you put in the stands and everything like that. And um and VC uh VHS VCRs were just coming out onto the market. In fact, our very first VCR that we ever had in our store had a had a based cost to us as a wholesale cost of$499.

unknown:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. How far have we come, right? I don't even know. My daughter doesn't even know what a VCR looks like right now. She probably wouldn't even know how to use it, let alone be able to say that that's an actual VCR, right? So we start in January of 81. We start kind of going down this road, we figure out what we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that was 82.

SPEAKER_00:

This is 82, okay. So prime time comes along. How many stores did you actually start after that?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we only started one store in in 1982. Um we limped along, and and um in March of 1984, I came back from a April conference in San Diego, and um that was put on by some of the old original leaders of April at that time, and our president at that time was a guy named Barry Gambini. Um, and Ed Wynn, who you've heard that name numerous times, he was very involved in that thing. In fact, my very first April meeting, if I back up a little bit, my very first April meeting and in meeting Ed and um people like Chuck Sims, who owned Remco Rentals, um, and uh the Growls, they were uh uh dealers in central or in the central United States and Wyoming. Um a gentleman named uh Curtis Pearcy in California, his son Les had stores in California. Anyways, met these guys in um May of 1982, and um anyway, so because of that, that's how I got connected with April through this franchise, and I went to this meeting very early on. And at that meeting in '82, um I found out through Chuck Sims, the whole basis was of how to build a company. I didn't know anything. I mean, I'm 24 years old. This is just winging it by a prayer, right? So um he gave us a lot of basis of how to build a corporate philosophy and a structure, strategic plan for the future, and so on and so forth. So fast forward back to what I was talking about in San Diego in 84, uh, in the spring of 84, I um I came back from that meeting, and when I did come back from that meeting, uh my brother, who was the CPA who helped get me into the business, uh was tired of dealing uh with being an accountant in front of the IRS, and he wanted to get in the business. And I didn't have enough money to start my second store, he did, but I had the rights for an area for a second store, and um I had the knowledge. He didn't have the knowledge, he didn't have the rights, so we became partners in 1984, opened our second store, and our third store we opened um in October of 1984. So um times went on from there, and and that partnership broke up after about two years. Why is that? Uh it more brother stuff than anything else. Uh you know, I was very young at that time, and uh um uh we just had a disagreement of what I thought the program was and what he thought the program was of the partnership. So when we when we split up, we he took two of the stores and I took two of the stores. So and we did it amenably. I didn't I was I was still very good, uh uh very good friends and loving brother with my brother at that time. But it was it was not easy. It's not easy doing that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it is you know, sometimes just having a partner is hard. Having a partner in family sometimes, it just you know, you have your differences of opinion, and sometimes it's better just to keep it that way. Sometimes they can work through it.

SPEAKER_01:

He explained it the best way. If you you if you got a partner, you have another wife. That's there, that's the reality. So it's it's it's um and and God love my wife that I've had for 46 years, but but congratulations. Yeah, thank you. But but you know, partners, you know, again, uh I'm at that time I was 26, so I'm young, and and um he had certain ideas and I had others, and I was a salesman and he was more of the the um financial side or the back end money side of that, and I was learning.

SPEAKER_00:

So, how do we get from being 24, kind of getting into it, learning from these meetings, expanding to taking that and going all the way to being president of APRO uh between 93 and 95? That's that's a big jump.

SPEAKER_01:

That's that's so so so if we go back to that. So in 86 we I split the partnership up. And you have to understand it in um this um franchise group by May of 1988, we had six franchisee owners besides the franchise oars, and those six franchisees owned a combination of six stores independently of the franchise. And in May of 1988, the franchise OR got an offer from Renaissance to sell, and they were bound and they were pretty bound and determined that they figured that we would sell to Renaissance, and we decided not to. And so this group, this six of us, um, came together and they put me as the head speaker of the group, and I had to be in the middle of the negotiations with Renaissance as this sale was going down, because I also had one store that was involved in the sale because I was partners with these franchisees or franchisors, and so I was had to be in the middle of the meetings, anyways, and I had to work with Renaissance to allow us to break away and to allow us to still grow and have a company up here in the state of Washington. So, anyways, we were able to do that, and as we did that, then the six of us decided okay, we're gonna create our own company called Quality Rentals, and that name Quality Rentals was a separate corporation name that licensed back the rights to do business with that name Quality Rentals to these six individual owners. So we ended up being like the franchisors and the franchisees of our own company, if you can follow that. I was named president of that franchise or group, and we did it because we had 12 stores that had buying power for 12 stores, and at that time, still early in the industry, we had no bank financing, so we had to get Trans America, who was the main uh lending arm, to agree to lend us as a group the amount of money we needed to have to continue buying and so on and so forth. And and so we ended up having to cross-guarantee one another. You think that you talk about something interesting? You're guaranteeing the the guy next across the table from you that he's not gonna spend all of his money on boats and cars and stuff and make you go bankrupt because ham. So, anyways, it worked for the time being. And it was a um was a big deal in an aspect of getting us to survive.

SPEAKER_00:

What was what was the bank why were the banks not as lone, you know, as lend friendly as they are now? And I'm gonna say that they're lend friendly a lot now. The the R start tell a little bit RTO averse, but back then, like you said, there really wasn't anybody, you know, in the rent-to-owned business to say, you know, there was there were people here and there were people there. And it was very sporadic in that time frame as opposed to now. What was keeping the banks back and just holding them back and saying, I, you know, I really don't even know if I want to get into this and and kind of making you go through so many hoops at that particular point in time.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, here's a good here's put yourself in the banker's position. I'm gonna come and I'm gonna borrow money from you to buy a bunch of televisions that I'm going to give to somebody for a$20 bill for a weekly payment. And the information I'm taking has nothing to do with their credit history. It only has to do with who they are personally, where they work, the people they know. And uh I'm betting on the cum that you're gonna pay me another twenty dollars next week. And if you don't, you stole my$300 television that I paid for, and you only gave me$20. And the bank lent us the$300. So where's their collateral? They they there was not there, we were not a conditional sales contract, there was no meat in the game for the banks. So and I'm and as we go along, I'll explain to you how we we we got to that. But that's the reason why we didn't have any bank financing. I didn't I don't blame the banks. I mean, anybody with half a brain at that time probably wouldn't have given us any money at that time. And it and it was probably the right thing to do because there was um, and I don't want to talk um uh ill of our industry, but the it the but but if there was a time during the 80s, the especially the early and mid eighties and so on and so forth, there was a lot of people that were in the business that were probably they were in it for a quick buck, they weren't in it for a long term. And you know, people like myself, I was in it to uh uh create a family business and two different types of looking at things. And uh so that's why, and that's part of the reason why the lenders that we had eventually said we can't do this anymore, because they were they were starting to uh have too many defaults because of it.

SPEAKER_00:

So well, during that time frame also, I mean, you know, going over some legends, I did hear that there were some speed bumps in the road back in the day because of the fact that some of the vendors also didn't recognize rent-to-own as the same uh the same way kind of banks did. We don't really understand giving you guys these lines of credit with, let's say, televisions and washer and dryers or furniture. And I know you said in the beginning you guys did the you know electronics and appliances. What what were some of the things that you had to overcome in that regard? Because now you not only did you have to overcome the banking, now you've got to convince the vendors that you're gonna get their stuff back and you're gonna be able to pay for it, you know, on either a net 30 or whatever the case is and keep doing it.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it here's a back if you went back into the 80s again, going back to that time frame, you know, the the the big names in electronics were names like Sony, for instance. So Sony Television was the you know the Cadillac of televisions. And Sony, you know, Sony wouldn't look at us. I mean, we were the ugly stepchild across the street. You you know, you we're just if I if if I see Sony televisions in a rent-to-own store, I mean this is the ghettos of of retail as as they would look at it. You know, it was it was like if you were you know put it together in today's life, not all jewelers can handle Rolexes. They're not allowed to. I mean, Rolex is being very, you know, so that's really who we were, and we had to prove who we were. Well, again, like I said, during that time, we still had a fair amount of people that Jilly really weren't the most scrupulous and at times, and I'm willing to admit that. I mean, it's just they just they we didn't have a good reputation, uh albeit that's exactly what I'll say. Um our customers loved us, but the outside world thought we were somebody different. So um that that was a problem when it came to uh, in both cases, um products and in financing. And uh we had to go through some major changes as an industry and look at ourselves in the mirror and say, who the hell are we really? What are we trying to accomplish here? And um how are we gonna change that to um change the public image of business-wise, not the consumer, because the consumer was still coming to us. It would have been the uh the people that we're gonna have to deal with on the outside, whether it be banks, uh vendors, uh lawyers, um you know, so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_00:

Anybody that would be that way. So I'm doing a little math here. I'm doing a little math in my head. You said 46 years you've been married to your wife. That means that what in the year 80 or 79 you got married and she's kind of been with you through this entire ride? Yeah. Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So when you so when you're doing this and you're going into this like uncharted territory, you're you're you're going into rent-to-own and you guys are kind of kind of blazing your way. What did she think of all this?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, if it wasn't for her, to be honest with you, I wouldn't have been in the business. Uh I I her and I together made the decision. Our oldest daughter, who is now 44, um, and she actually, her and her little sister run a um RR Tire Express and Custom Wheel store that we owned, and that they bought from us after we sold our our traditional rent-to-one stores. But she was six months old at the time that we opened our first store. So um there was numerous times when, you know, if we ate lunch, we had a negative cash flow day in the store. So I was about ready to pack up and run and go home, that being back here to Moses Lake. And she said, No, we're in this for the long run. You know, you're not going anywhere. So her steadfastness and kicking me in the butt was probably has been the biggest thing. And then uh um and then again, as as as as time's gone and we uh gotten past this this uh sale of the franchise or group and and became quality rentals, that was very trying because I was put on notice. I mean, I was I was the spokesman for all these guys and and and their stores, and so there was a lot of stress there. But my wife, you know, held it all together and everything else, and and at that particular time is when I became more um not more, I would say more visual involved with April. I was just not just a dealer then. Um in 1991, I think it was. In 1991, I became a board member. Um I did not get elected to the board the first time I ran, but one of the board members could not follow through with their membership, their obligation, and I was the second highest uh person getting votes, so I was brought onto the board. And um during that time was our our president was a guy named uh Ted Wilson. Um, Wayne Chambers was our first vice president. And um we were going through the process at that time of rebuilding April itself. April was starting to fall apart, and our executive director, Bill Keith, was just being hired as as Ted Wilson came on. So a lot of people were running away from April at that time. So we were trying to build this structure of you know get these dealers together. And um, so anyways, that's that's where that led to. And then um in 19 um, I guess that would have been in 90s. So then 90, um, I don't know, 91 or 92, uh, as being on the board, I was uh, or just during that time was the first time I was awarded one of our our um our awards at APRO as being the rental dealer of the year. I guess it was 1992. Well, I I don't know. I just I was a lot of people say I quin people. I as you could tell I talk a lot, and uh and my voice is fairly loud, and so you know, um I was the little short guy that that just made a lot of noise, I guess. And people like the way I made noise, but anyways, and I did some things, and so uh got involved with our state, got our state association built, got a state let uh our state got their first law for regulating our industry during that time. And so I guess that's why I I got the award. But anyways, it was so in the early 90s, huh?

SPEAKER_00:

It was in the early 90s that you were able to help establish a law in the Wa in Washington State?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's one of the things we were doing in the in the very early 90s, is we had tried to go to the federal government years ago in the 80s and try to get federal legislation. Well, that's just it's a battle that's not going to happen. And so Ed Wynne came up with the concept of, you know, let's go at this thing on a state-by-state basis. And it's much easier dealing with state legislators than federal legislators. And so at that particular point, we started passing good comprehensive laws that protected our industry, but also protected the consumers. And, you know, I think I don't know when we left, I don't know, there's 48 states in the union that have good laws, I think, at this time, something like that. And that's how that all came about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, it's good to say that you were a part of that. You know, any time that somebody can say in the industry, I helped keep the regulation for our industry in check so that we can actually do what it is that we need to do to be successful. Congratulations and kudos to you.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, here here's something that will give you a uh um a kind of a uh time capsule of something. Uh the champion of our bill in the state of Washington was at that time state senator Patty Murray. I don't know if you know that name, but Patty Murray is the third strongest person in the Senate, in the United States Senate on Washington, D.C. now. So if you see Schumer talking about the shutdown today, you'll see a little short blonde gal next to him. That's Patty Murray. And I've known her since 1991 or two. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's great. That's excellent. That's excellent. So then, so 91, things are kind of getting back in. You get with Cleese and you're trying to get everything back together. 92, you're recognized as rental dealer of the year. 93 to 95, you actually became president of April. So somebody must have liked your voice a whole, whole lot to really make that happen. You you must have been doing something right. Can you describe to me what it was like to start from this industry not really knowing what it's like to actually helping run one of the largest advocacy agencies that we have, as far as APRO is concerned, in the industry?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, first of all, it was a shock. Um, I was just a typical board member, and during that time we had an executive committee, and the executive committee of the board, you went you worked your way through the process. And and always the the first vice president of the executive committee on the board was the heir apparent to be the next president. That's just kind of how it worked. And uh the heir apparent at that time had some personal issues that were not gonna allow him to be president, and um um so at a at a conference in the Dominican Republic for April, I was approached by again Ted Wilson, an ex-president, Wayne Chambers, the current president, and Bill Kees, the executive director, about becoming president of APRO. And again, you've asked me about my wife. This is a uh a big deal about it. She they made sure that she was at the meeting. And um I'm the ripe old age of I think 34 years old at this time. I know I was in my early 30s, and there was a lot of other people on that board that were much older than I am and have been in the industry longer than I am, and they said, No, you're the one. You you're you're the one that needs to be the one to take this helm. And um so my wife and I spent that whole conference, which was three days, um, debating on whether we should say yes or no. Um, we decided to say yes the last day, and I'll never forget this. That evening we were at a function, and Ed Wynne came in with Bill Keys and said to me, Well, Mr. President, guess what? And I said, What's that? He said, the chairman of the House Banking Committee, Henry B. Gonzalez, is gonna have a hearing on our industry on Wednesday, and it's not gonna be pretty. And so, welcome to the fire.

SPEAKER_00:

And I went, basically, I don't know, what the crap did I get myself into? Now, if anybody doesn't know, the Henry B. Gonzalez issue that came up was you know, somebody in the government decided that they they really wanted to take toll on rent to own and shut it down. So, how involved were you in the Henry B. Gonzalez situation? And and what did you what steps did you take? Now you're in the fray now. Somebody says, you know, and I love Edwin, he's a friend of the show. I love him to death. Every time somebody comes up, and every time I talk about a legend, Edwin's name is involved in that sentence because he has been there for everything. So Edwin, please come in. They're talking to you, and you just think, you know what? Hey, this is happening. What did you do? I mean, obviously, we got to get back to the states. We've got to get our wits about us, and then in a couple of days, we're gonna end up finding out what's really happening as far as how they wanted to dismantle the rent-town industry. How did you turn it around? What did you do to get prepped for that situation?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, first and foremost, we went through, of course, a hearing that was just ugly. And again, time capsule-wise, let's go back to time capsule-wise. Here's here's some time capsules. Sitting on Henry B. Gonzalez's committee, the subchairman of the committee was Robert Kennedy, Mr. Maha. Okay. Um, other people that sat on that committee was a congressman that's still there. His name is Luis Gonzales out of Texas, and somebody you see on TV a lot, Maxine Waters, and they did not like us. I mean, they called us every name in the book, in fact. So, you know, we as far as they were concerned, we were stealing money, we were stealing from poor people, period. That was their opinion of us. And as I had said earlier, we had a bad image. I mean, we we created it ourselves, our industry created that. So we were in the process of trying to clean this up, but now all of a sudden this comes upon us. So um, as I became president, um our convention that year was in Orlando, Florida. We had an extra some rooms that didn't cost us anything, and so I called a strategic planning meeting to put together a attack situation and how we're gonna go about this. And it was it was coming from all ends. You have to understand because of the hearing, we had the legislators that was uh legislatures that were after us, every television, radio station, every media market was attacking us. Um at the same time that that was going on, the Internal Revenue Service was attacking us, and that's a total separate entity. That if they'd have gotten done what they wanted to do, they would have bankrupt the industry. So we had a we had really like a three-front war going on. So we we flew to Orlando and I I requested people to be there that I thought very highly of, one being Ed. But another one, again, I've talked about him before is Chuck Sims. He's a great oritator, he's a great facilitator to put a strategic planning meeting together. And so Ted Wilson was there, people like Daryl Tissett was there, uh Dick Eichland, Bill Keys, uh I think Bill White was there, um Rich Bartell, I think was there. There was a bunch of us, and we spent three days there, and we put a strategic planning group together. I know, oh, and and I know that Wayne Chambers was there. We put a plan together of how we were going to attack this. And we we from there we came out with how we're going to approach the legislature. Then we hired a public relations group to deal with our image problem. And we also at the same time hired the a very high-powered attorney group in Washington, DC, that was going to attack the IRS. And in fact, our head litigator in that um in that attorney group was retired superior tax court judge, Samuel Sterrett. And um, so we had some high-powered hitters that were on our on our hands. We hired a uh, of course, a lobbyist group in the in Washington, D.C. His name was uh John Raffielli. And uh Raf had pros and cons, and we had a lot of battles with a lot of different dealers. As you can tell, most dealers are are Republicans, and John is a is a Democrat, and and uh but this was during the the Clinton administration, so it it made more sense to have somebody like that that knew where, as I could put it, the bodies are buried and where we could go. So um that's how the whole thing was put together. Was it trying? Oh yeah. I mean, I was on radio shows and television shows like I can't believe. Uh I remember going to a board meeting on Austin, Texas, and after the board meeting was done, Ron Waters, who was our head legislative guy that worked hand in hand with Ed Wynn, said, What are you what are you doing now? And he said, Well, I'm gonna get on an airplane and go back to Seattle. And he said, No, you're not. Uh you and I are flying to Washington DC tonight. Uh, you we have a meeting with the uh Speaker of the House of Representatives tomorrow morning, who just happened to be Tom Foley from the state of Washington at that time. Wow. And uh this is my first time to be in front of a legislator. And uh um anyway, so that's how the ball ran. And so I was it was it was a wild and crazy time. And I'm gonna say very scary.

SPEAKER_00:

You handle it like a pro. You you you I mean, you're talking about things that right now, even as we speak, I'm just oh my god. That was the first, the Henry B. Gonzalez thing was huge. Now, I did hear about the IRS before, about some of the things that they wanted to do, but can you explain to me as this was going on, what is it exactly the IRS was trying to implement that would have really made some big changes to the rent-owned industry and possibly put us out altogether?

SPEAKER_01:

The biggest thing is that is that the Internal Revenue Service wanted to um define us as a as a disguised credit sale, not a lease. And so the difference between a conditional contract credit sale is that if I was to sell you a television and put it on payments for you, I have to claim all the income for the total contract up front and then write off the cost of the product. Okay? That's how that works tax purposes-wise. Well, in rent own, that would not work because not even close. Because these people don't have uh, they have no obligation to keep it, they could give it back at any time, and and it made no sense. So we always called it a lease and or a rental, and we took the inventory and depreciated it, otherwise wrote off a certain amount per month to write off the inventory itself until the contract was fully taken up, or the con or that, or whoever uh actually owned that product at the end came, then the rest of the value of that product would be written off on the books. So what we were looking at was somewhere between a one to two billion dollar problem, tax problem-wise. And it would have it would have put us out of business. There's no other way around it. Right. So what had happened is a dealer in Indiana, the name of the dealer was Rarex, was was found guilty of this disguised credit sale under the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service. And we asked this dealer if he would be the guinea pig, so that we could take and file a suit in Superior Court tax uh suit to go against the Internal Revenue Service. And they gracefully said yes. So we put together, you know, and to do all this, you have to understand something. Prior to this, we already knew that prior to all this crap happening, we knew we had had to do some of this stuff, and we had an old fund that was called the LDIF fund, it was called the Legal Defense Initiative Fund. And so we that was one of the things I did before I was president. I went to the in front of everybody at April and said, all we need from you is one VCR, the cost of a VCR per store. Just cut us that check, and that's we'll fund this, okay? So we had to keep doing this, raising money to keep, you know, this, for instance, I mean, I remember Ed talking to us, you know, we'd sit down and talk about Ed Wynne would talk to us about the bills that we would get from this attorney group in Washington, D.C. And he said, Boy, I wish I knew how to charge people like these they do. But but anyways, so uh anyway, so the the the long of the short of it was is that we had to um um we had to keep the money thing going together, we had to keep the dealers together to not freak out and run away. And um we we had to keep we had to do this, and then also the bad press on the other side, we had to get our customers to go, this isn't happening with you, is it? And how we did that is they once we explained it, especially our customers, we explained that to them. Um, we ended up getting petitions in stores to write to tell our congressmen that we came in with stacks of petitions to take to our congressmen and say, this is what our customers think of us. You're telling us that they don't know what the hell they're doing. Yes, they do, but they do exactly what they're doing. But, anyways, back to the IRS thing. That's why the Internal Revenue Service um was such a big deal. We would have been uh the legislative thing would have crippled us, but the IRS would have put us out of business. And we would have never survived that.

SPEAKER_00:

The the industry would have been gone. That I can only imagine having been thrusted into that immediately. But you handle it, I gotta say, Kevin, you handle it very well. So coming out of that, you know, some that there's a name that you've mentioned a lot. Bill Cleese is something that you we you have mentioned quite a few times. Um, and I've also understood, and and maybe you can correct me on this story. Did you guys start a foundation together?

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, my wife and I started a foundation after that that brother of mine that was my partner, uh, as time went on in our business, uh, we rekindled our partnership again in the year of 2000. And in 2002, um he passed away playing tennis, had a massive heart attack. Sorry to hear that. And um so in his um in his memory, um we create we at the same year that that happened, we had a uh longtime employee of ours that died from uh colon cancer. And so my wife and I created a uh uh uh a golf tournament to fund a education foundation that we started. And so April had its own education foundation. My wife and I had another separate foundation that Dennis Shields, you mentioned about, and a lot of other dealers had uh they would come out, and vendors from all over the country would come to the state of Washington to play golf, and we'd raise$50,000,$60,000,$70,000 in a day playing golf and having fun. So it was it was a good time when we, anyways, that's a whole different deal.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I do hear, I mean, I've I've I've heard about it. It it it still echoes in the halls of the legends as you know, to some of the things that you've done and the fact that a lot of the industry got behind you on this, and maybe that's where the the the Bill Cleese part comes in because I know that uh you know a lot of people were talking about how this went down. Now, had it has the foundation changed or has it stopped it's gone away since we retired.

SPEAKER_01:

We you know, it it we don't have it anymore. We don't have the we don't have the arm of the of the vendors and everything else that would fund it. But but back to Bill Keys. Uh Bill Keys is um um having him around at that time of the legislature part, Bill Keys' background was he was a a a uh a Texas state legislator before he became the executive director of A April. And I'll never forget um it was either my first or second time up there. In DC, we had a meeting with a Texas legislator. In fact, and we had this meeting that Bill set up, and it was in the Democratic Club. And so this is a this is a members-only place that the Democrat members can come to to have lunch. And we were having lunch there, and Bill, in fact, looked at me and said, How do you like having lunch at the in the middle of the lion's den? And anyways, uh, it I mean it was an eye-opening experience, but because of his background and knowing some of these people, we were able to navigate through the woods and through the trees to get the right people that we needed to have that could put Gonzalez at bay and hold him completely off, which we were able to do. At the same time, on the IRS side, we we found our champion in Senator Dick Shelby from Alabama. And the the key to him was is that he was the chairman of the appropriations committee to the Internal Revenue Service. So he controlled all their money. And we were contributors to Senator Shelby. You know, nothing in Washington, D.C. goes without money. It just anybody believes that, that they're they're you know, they're in a dreamland. It just doesn't work that way. And um, anyways, the long the short of it was is that uh we uh we we become in favor with with Senator Shelby. And Senator Shelby had a conversation with the commissioner of the IRS about an appropriation she needed, and he said it looked okay, but he said, What do you know about rent to own? The next day we got a retproct ruling, which is like getting a ruling from the Supreme Court that says we're a lease, not a sale, and we're a depreciable item. And at that time it was a five-year property, and the president that took over after me, Mr. Bill White, um took that back and got it got us tied to a uh tax bill thing that got us three years depreciation. So I'm gonna tell you what, that's a win. And it happened my last year as presidency. I kept telling Bill and Ed and everybody, I said, we got to have a win before we go to the convention. These guys are tired of cutting checks and not seeing us win anything. And uh it was a huge win.

SPEAKER_00:

It was a huge win. It was. It was it not only a huge win for April, a huge win for the RTO industry as a whole. Yeah, I mean, everything that we do nowadays kind of revolves around the activities that happened during the beginning of that decade. Yeah, so then you go through this, you you start the foundation, you're the president, you've had the you know, you're running your stores, you've kind of accomplished a lot. And then in 2010, they said, you know what? We've got to give you an award. We've got to tell you that we appreciate it. Kevin, you're doing an amazing job. Let's give you the Lifetime Achievement Award from APRO. How was it to receive that award from some of the people that you had been with all this time and kind of helped out in the industry?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh it um it probably is the uh the greatest award I've ever received. Um it it has two good meanings for me. Um one is that it's the recognition that I received, um, but also the gentleman that awarded it to me, it was Tiger John Clee, and we lost Tiger a few years ago. Very good friend of mine. Anyways, um that sorry about that. Um but that meant a lot to me. And and um so I you know it's a it was a big deal. It's a big deal that uh um, you know, I'm I'm proud of the awards that I've won in all of them. That the you know the ones I've worn gotten from Apro, I've gotten one the one award you can get from the Trib Group, which is you know that you've dealt with Dennis, and and um it's um yeah, it's it's a big deal. It's it's yeah, I guess that's all I can say. It's it was a big deal, especially coming from Tiger.

SPEAKER_00:

So well, Tiger Cleet was was almost superhuman in the sense he was he was bigger than life when it came to you know the RTO industry, somebody that a lot of people looked up to into uh, you know, including uh John Cleek Jr., who's been on the show, who's also a very good friend of the show, and I look up to he's he's a an amazing person. Um and he reveres his father.

SPEAKER_01:

Here's an interesting thing. His father and I met in, I think it was probably 1989 or 90, um, on a fishing trip. The Speed Queen Laundry was took us all up into Canada. And uh he and his wife Ann have been good friends of Angie's and mine for years. Uh we've followed Johnny growing up in the b in the business. Uh we've followed them and their and their grandchildren. In fact, uh the cliques came out. I don't know if you know this, but uh one of Johnny's children is is is in the spectrum and is a great golfer, and he was playing golf in the uh in the uh the Olympics for um Special Olympics in in uh in Seattle. And uh the Cleats came out and we we uh had them out here in Moses Lake and then took them to uh to to Seattle and they hosted us at Husky Stadium, which I'm a diehard Husky fan as much as John was a diehard because we're a Tiger fan. But anyways, uh we got to sit in our football stadium and watch his son or his grandson um be part of the opening ceremony at at uh Husky Stadium was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00:

That's absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

And I guess to go with that, if there's one thing that I can say, being um being one of the the old timers, if that's what you want to call us, um we call it legends, Kevin. You guys are the legends. The uh the if I was to look back, um, you know, I'm getting the older I get, the more I look back, and I've mentioned some names and quite a few of them that you know they're not with us anymore. And um we've got some that are today that are sick that the were legends that that are not with us and or or that are still with us but are have issues, and and you know, we pray for them every day that they get better, but that's in God's hands. The the biggest thing that it through all that is I've like I said, like the cliques, um, like the Windsors, uh, the Quinns, my daughters. We've seen this evolution of these people, and then now their children, the second generations taking over and making putting a stamp on this industry. And whether it be in the uh the television furniture appliance business or whether it be in the wheel and tire business, um, it's pretty cool to watch. I mean, this this uh this little goofy idea that was started by uh Bud Holiday why Ernie Tally goes on vacation to rent some washers and dryers, you know, blows up into this thing that has lasted for you know 60 plus 70 plus years almost. And then it's a multi-billion dollar industry. And yeah, it it's to be part of it in the early stages and see where it's at today is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I gotta say, Kevin, it it's so important. I love to have these conversations, especially with our legends, because you guys have such a story to tell. And it's not that I haven't done anything in 20 years. I mean, I've done I've done a lot, but my 20 years, I think, just scratches the surface of some of the things that you've been able to go through and create, be a part of, uh, whether it be the government-wise, whether it be the creating or moving of uh April from one point to another, whether it's you know, tackling the IRS or just getting everybody together and putting April back on point. It's so great to see that happen. It's so great to see some of the camaraderie of some of the legends in the industry. And that's the other thing.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, through this, we created great friendships. Like I mentioned about uh, you know, uh John Cleek. Um we lost Daryl Tissett just a few months ago, and uh Daryl was a very good friend of mine, and and uh I played a lot of golf with Daryl. And there's a gentleman that's been retired, he retired the same time that I did. His name is Dick Eichland. It was part of that strategic planning meeting. He lives in Virginia, he lost his wife a few years ago, but um it just so happens that here in a few days, my wife and I are gonna jump in a car and drive to Deadwood, South Dakota and meet Dick. And Dick this year will be 92 years old. And um in November, and um so um and he's probably one of my closest and dearest friends. And so how do you how do you how do you look at that? I mean, again, I was the young guy, so um I'm the ripe old age of 68 today, and I'm talking about a 92-year-old man that's one of my closest friends. Um, you know, Bill Keach was much older than I am. Uh, same thing with Ed Wynne and all that, you know. Uh Lynn, you mentioned Lynn Leach earlier. His father was, you know, it used to be around during my earlier stages as being as president of April and so on. And my wife and I have traveled to uh traveled to Nebraska and gone to football games with Lynn and they came out here, Lynn and Natalie. And so I mean the the camaraderie that this industry has and always will have is um is amazing. And I and if you look at other industries and especially vendors, they'll tell you there's nothing like it. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. So it's it's it's um it's it's pretty unique. It is absolutely unique. One point that I want to make to you that I I know I talked to you about this on the phone, that uh um that I became aware of it when Bill Keys retired down in Galveston, Texas, at our convention. Excuse me, was um all that that Henry Begonzala stuff and the IRS and all during all that time. Um Richard May, who was part of our legislative group at April 2, he was he was one of our employees, um was there and he he told me that unbeknownst to me, uh a professor at Texas AM had had looked into this, what we had done, and it's part of one of his books that he teaches on um about political science and how small groups can be powerful by finding the right people and knowing the right things and the right ways to go about it and do things. We're a textbook. Um case study. We're part of a textbook, and who would have thunk that? Oh, I you know, we're just we're just a bunch of peddlers, you know, selling televisions of furniture.

SPEAKER_00:

That's you know, that's who we are. That's who most people are. Well, you know, Kevin, the way it works is I don't think anybody ever sets out to be great. They set out to accomplish something, and in that they find greatness. And I think that's that's the RTO industry. We never really set out to do anything else but be successful in what we do and try to overcome the trials and tribulations that have been set in front of us. And out of that we've had the camaraderie, the generations, and every so often we just leapspring into something new that we didn't have before. Whether it's beating the ability to have quite a few high-level names say that they didn't want rent to own around or the IRS or whether it was a banking situation, it seems that perseverance, especially with the people that are around you, when when you have a lot of separate companies come together as one and unite and say, you know what, I can put down the differences of you sold my friend uh a VCR and this guy took my customer with, we put that aside and go, you know what? As an industry, as a whole, in the United States, you knew we got from Washington, and like you've you've mentioned uh Texas and you know, Tissits from um Ohio, and you're talking about uh the cleats from Missouri. You know, you get them all together, and it is a force to be reckoned with to be able to stand there and and really align themselves together under the April banner and go, we're gonna we're gonna take this on one at a time and knock this out and knock this out and knock this out. And then somebody makes a case study out of it, right? And then and then you and then you become you become the thing of legend. And that's it.

SPEAKER_01:

That's what this is all about. It's a great thing to to look back on and say, you know, it's just um it's uh the industry's been very, very good to my wife and I, um, and our children, and my grandchildren. And um, and um um you know, I don't know where I'd have been if it wasn't for um my brother introducing me to do to two guys that um decided to go to Texas and listen to some guy named Dennis Palmquist about how he could sell TVs this way. It's it just you know, yeah, you God works in a very very mysterious way, and and uh we've been blessed to have that journey and write on it.

SPEAKER_00:

So something that I've always believed in, uh something that I've heard a few years ago and it's never left because God bless the broken road. Yeah, there you go. That's what it's about. So at the end, you've come such a long way, you're here now. Tell me a little bit before we go. You say your daughters uh have an RR right now. How is that working out? How is how different is that from what you know from what you did, and how are they doing?

SPEAKER_01:

In 2013, um, we weren't for sale, and we were approached by the buddies group in Tampa, Florida, about being part of the Vanilla expansion process that eventually, I don't know how it leaked out, but it got to Rena Center. And again, we still weren't for sale. And God bless us. I mean, God blessed Angie and I, you know, it was it was you you can't make this up, but we get two of the the largest and the third largest company in the country that want to buy us and we're not for sale, and they basically got in a bidding more over us. And so, you know, what are you gonna say? Again, back to my wife of 46 years, she says, if you don't take this deal, uh you're in trouble. You're in trouble. So so, anyways, so we retired from that and from the Raton industry at that point. One of the prior to that, though, we had started an RR franchise with Larry Sutton. And um the store was not doing well because I wasn't paying attention to it. I was more on the other side, and I was hoping that one of my key people would would would do so, and it it just didn't work out very well. But long and short of it was the buddies group did not want that store. So after we sold, my daughters didn't have a job because they were part of my front office. And uh, in fact, our our oldest daughter, Courtney, was our spokesman on television and head of our advertising, and she was on all of our trucks and everything. And and our daughter, our youngest daughter was my uh uh she was my chief, she was the head of our office. She ran everything in the office and HR and everything. So anyway, so they did they came to us and said, Dad, can we have the wheel and tire store? Yeah, but I can't pay you. I said, you know, I there's no money there, I can't pay you. Um and so they they took it on, and um we of course helped them and uh helped them financially with it with the store to make us survive. They finally turned it around, uh, paid us all of our money back that we had put into it, uh, made themselves uh a decent living out of the thing. And um in fact, in I don't know, five years ago, I think it was, four or five years ago, our daughters were named the women of the year by the RR franchise group, and uh were on two or three podcasts like you uh doing, but they were talking to people about women uh running a tire and wheel store and what that was like, and also being sisters. And so uh we're very proud of them. Very proud of them.

SPEAKER_00:

I would be, absolutely. As a matter of fact, I got I mean we we're gonna have to talk about Courtney after this after this episode is over. Courtney and Casey and Casey, I I'd love to get them on the show, but I I really appreciate Kevin you being on here with me and kind of just walking me through some of the timelines. You know, we've got decades of information, whether it be, you know, the the 80s or the 90s or the 2010s, and now we're here. I really appreciate you taking out the time to talk to me about it. I really appreciate you kind of going back and just filling us in on some of the things that really were that meant a lot to the industry, not only to the industry, but to the people in the industry. Because as much as you say that there's camaraderie and there was a lot of people around there, they also say the same about you. Your name comes up in those circles as well as somebody that they really revered and still revere to this day. So, you know, just so you know, it's not a one-way street. They say the same thing about you. And I really appreciate you being on this Legends series with me. Guys, I will tell you I so much appreciate you being on here with the podcast. Listen, if you have any questions for Kevin or the podcast, please let me know. If you want to reach out to me on the email, it's Pete at the RTO Showpodcast.com or go online to the podcast at the rtoshowpodcast.com. You can go on there, see the episodes, buy some swag, support the show. You can also see us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube where you're gonna say this. Kevin, I really appreciate having you on the show. And I'm gonna tell you guys as always, get your collections low to get your sales high. Have a great one. And that's it. That's it. That's all it is. It was

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Pete Shau

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