How APRO Built the Modern Rent to Own Industry with Ed Winn

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How did the rent to own industry survive legal uncertainty, public criticism, and decades of political battles to become a nationwide business model with laws in 47 states?

In this special RTO Legends episode, Pete Shau sits down with retired APRO legal counsel Ed Winn to uncover the real story behind the formation of APRO, the evolution of rent to own legislation, and the advocacy efforts that shaped modern consumer access. 

This episode explores the early days of rent to own, the push for federal and state legislation, the rise of industry advocacy groups, and the role APRO played in building trust, transparency, and long term industry stability. Listeners will hear firsthand stories about rent to own regulation, class action lawsuits, federal hearings, consumer disclosure practices, and the leadership decisions that transformed a fragmented business model into a recognized industry. 

What You’ll Learn

• How APRO was founded in 1980 and why early rent to own operators realized they needed industry advocacy and legal protection
• Why the rent to own industry shifted from pursuing federal legislation to building state by state legal frameworks
• How rent to own laws evolved differently across states like Texas, California, Minnesota, New York, and North Carolina
• The role transparency, consumer disclosures, and ethical business practices played in improving the industry’s public image
• Why AI, digital search systems, and historical storytelling are becoming critical for the future of rent to own advocacy

Episode Highlights:

• 02:39 – The legal uncertainty surrounding rent to own in the late 1970s and early 1980s
• 04:09 – Why early industry leaders believed rent to own could become a legitimate long term business model
• 06:14 – The moment APRO shifted from pursuing federal laws to building state by state legislation
• 09:39 – How model rent to own legislation helped standardize laws across multiple states
• 11:18 – Why Minnesota and New Jersey became some of the toughest legal battles in rent to own history
• 18:57 – How passing state laws unified dealers and strengthened the APRO membership base
• 30:19 – The industry debate around transparency, disclosures, and consumer trust
• 39:08 – How APRO helped transform rent to own from a fragmented business model into a nationally recognized industry
• 48:36 – Ed Winn explains why Charles Smitherman’s AI and advocacy vision could shape the future of APRO

Meet the Guest:

Ed Winn is the retired legal counsel for APRO and one of the most influential legal and advocacy voices in the history of the rent to own industry. He helped guide state legislation, industry policy, and advocacy efforts for more than four decades. 

Tools, Frameworks, or Strategies Mentioned:

• APRO advocacy and legislative strategy
• State by state rent to own regulatory frameworks
• Model rent to own legislation from the Council on State Governments
• Consumer disclosure and transparency standards
• State association development and advocacy coordination
• Federal versus state legislative approaches for regulated industries
• AI driven industry storytelling and digital advocacy strategy

Closing Insight:

“If you’ve got something to hide, you’re not going to make it.”

This episode is a powerful look at how transparency, advocacy, and leadership helped shape the modern rent to own industry and why preserving that history matters for future generations of operators, lawmakers, and consumers.

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:09):
As opposed to looking at my nose.

SPEAKER_05 (00:18):
Let's see.

SPEAKER_01 (00:24):
That's a good spot.
That's better, isn't it?
That's a great spot.
All right.
Okay.
So we're going to go in three,two.
Hello, and welcome to the RTOshow.
I'm your host, Pete Channel, andtoday we have another legend.
Actually, you probably know thislegend from the podcast before.
Not that he needs anintroduction, but the what used

(00:45):
to be the legal counsel forApril, and now he's enjoying his
retirement.
I've got Ed Wynn here, who isgoing to get shed some light on
some of the things that happenedearly on.
I tell you, when we say legends,you know, sometimes I don't know
if we can say it enough.
Ed, how are you doing today?
How's everything going?
How are you enjoying retirement?

SPEAKER_02 (01:05):
I like it fine.
My bones tell me that man is puton earth to work.
That's why we're all here.
And so suddenly not to have workis is uh troublesome, quite
frankly.
I've got to figure out somethingto do, but I'm not in a hurry to

(01:26):
do that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:27):
Well, you know, at least you can do it on your
time.
There you go.
There you go, for sure.
So, one of the reasons we wantedto do with this Legends podcast
and and interview a lot of thelegends that we have, such as
yourself, because there's somuch history involved in what
you guys have done and thethings that you guys have had to
get through in order to kind ofbe where you're at.

(01:49):
And to make sure that we aregetting there and we're doing
the things that we need to do,we've got to actually talk about
what happened in the beginning,I should say, late 70s, early
80s.
You know, that's a bit that's abig crunch time.
Um, and in that crunch time, wehad a lot going on as far as we
didn't have the legislation wehave now.

(02:09):
As a matter of fact, we didn'thave a lot of the states on
board like we did now.
And, you know, when you startedthe, and you were there day one.
I remember we talked about itbefore.
You were there day one on thefirst meeting of April to get
this done.
Um, and the first the firstpresident was Bud Holliday back
then, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 (02:27):
Correct.
But Bud and uh Chuck Sims werereally the organizers and
inspiration for the creation ofAPRO.

SPEAKER_01 (02:38):
Let me ask you a question, Ed.
How so as you're going intothis, this is your first
meeting, everything is startingto kick off.
What was the idea or how to getall these independent dealers
from all these states who have alot of different ideas to come
together under one banner, likeAPRO, to advocate for the

(02:58):
business?

SPEAKER_02 (03:01):
Well, I don't think that there was any grand scheme.
They just thought some of thosedealers at that very first
meeting uh didn't could carecould have cared less about any
laws.
They were they were gonna make aquick kill and get out of town,
uh, renting TVs to poor folks athigh prices uh until they got

(03:24):
caught.
Others, Bud Holliday, ChuckSims, and uh others recognized
that they really had a uhpotential goal mine if they
could not be sued out ofexistence.
And so they were very intent onuh making rent owned legal.
At the time there were no lawsat all about rent owned, and

(03:45):
there were Ed.

SPEAKER_01 (04:08):
I don't know if you can hear me, but I don't see
anything.
I think I'm coming back.
Okay, there you go.
You're coming back.
So it it cut off.

SPEAKER_02 (04:15):
I didn't I lost it for a minute there, but so so we
organized, we we came together,we organized.
The thought was we're gonna runup to Congress and get a federal
law passed.
That was the goal.
And we talked to ColorTime, hada uh law firm that did their
franchise work, Brownstein,Zeitman, and Schomer, who had

(04:37):
some lobbyists.
We talked to them, they said, weget this law passed.
You only need to talk to aboutsix guys.
And we got we we prevailed uponPaul Senator Paula Hawkins in
Florida to introduce a bill uhin the Senate.
It got attached to some bankinglegislation, it passed the
Senate 98 to nothing.

(04:58):
And then that bill died in theHouse.

SPEAKER_01 (05:03):
So I hear for rent to own, because this is
something that I've been talkingto Charles about and some of the
other legends, that Texas,Florida, and California were
some states that were really,really hard to get some
legislation passed, almostground zero in the state, in the
sense that they were hard to getsomething done.
It took a while to get itpassed, but I think we did

(05:26):
succeed in two out of three,correct?

SPEAKER_04 (05:38):
Let's see, I think I lost you again.

SPEAKER_02 (05:48):
There.
What were your three states?
California, Texas, and Florida.
Texas wasn't hard to get,Florida wasn't hard to get.
California was very hard to get.
So I don't know about who you Idon't know who you heard that
from, but that's inaccurate.

SPEAKER_01 (06:04):
I actually that was Charles, but we'll see.
We'll see about that.
I'm gonna have to talk to himabout that one.

SPEAKER_02 (06:09):
We sped through the Texas legislature and uh
Ernestine Glossbrenner, acelebrated liberal from uh the
south of Texas, a schoolteacher, came out hard against
us, but we were able to turn herand get her to accept reasonable
legislation in Texas in uh in amonth.

(06:32):
Florida was not any harder.
California took years becauseCalifornia is California, land
of fruits and nuts.

SPEAKER_01 (06:42):
Absolutely.
So talking about getting thisdone, was the approach of April,
when it was coming time to, youknow, we had to tackle what was
going on, no laws, state level.
Was the idea to do a dominoeffect that April would approach
it as let me knock one state offof another until I, you know,

(07:03):
until we had enough to make thisworthwhile campaign for April
and the rent-owned industry?
Or was it I'm gonna take youknow this state uh or or with
somebody's this state, you guysare gonna take that state and
try to tackle as many as youcould at one time?

SPEAKER_02 (07:18):
Well, as I say, early on, we weren't gonna mess
with the states.
We were gonna get a federal lawpassed, and we tried that um for
the first few years in the early80s, 81, 82, 83, 84.
Then there was a uh Michiganrental dealer who had friends in
the Michigan legislature.

(07:38):
Uh her name was Brown,Representative Brown.

SPEAKER_01 (08:14):
I don't I don't know if you can hear me on times like
this.
I don't see you at all.
Uh and I don't hear anything.
I'm just waiting for it to clearup though.

SPEAKER_04 (09:11):
There we go.
There you go.

SPEAKER_02 (09:14):
We'll see.
Uh so the very first law thatgot passed was at the behest of
a rental dealer who had a dozenstores in Michigan and a friend
in the legislature, and he waswilling to spend whatever it
took to make his transactionlegal in Michigan.
And so in the uh waning hours of1983, the issue on the table was

(09:40):
price controls.
That somebody in the Michiganlegislature said, we want to
control um your prices as afunction of the early purchase
option.
The formula ended up being thatwe had to give they they wanted
they wanted price controls.
And we had to scramble literallyon New Year's Eve to uh see

(10:05):
whether the industry could livewith that.
And we decided that we could.

(10:35):
And so Sam Choate went to SouthCarolina.
I went to Alabama, I lived inTexas, and uh we got we knocked
off those three states thatyear.
And over time in the 80s, webegan to realize that trying to
get a federal law was going tobe tough.

(10:55):
It was gonna it was gonna cost awhole lot more money than we
were willing to spend, and weseemed to be fairly successful
at the state level.
And so uh April formed a agovernment relations committee
that studied the states.
I will say uh Rena Center sortof drove that train, and Rena
Center said, hey, we got a lotof stores in this state, and we

(11:17):
want to get a law passed there,uh, and we'll spend the money to
get it done, we'll hire thelobbyists.
And so we we watched and helpedas best we were able and um you
know began that process state bystate of uh getting those laws.

SPEAKER_01 (11:36):
And were there was there, you know, each individual
state has its own heartbeat.
Were there a lot of differences?
And when I say a lot, I mean Iknow that there are some
differences between state andstate, some of them very little,
some of them quite a bit.
Were there was was it hard tonavigate from one state to the
next because of theirdifferences that it created uh a

(11:57):
little bit of backlash, or wasit just easy enough to kind of
go through once they startedgetting knocked down?

SPEAKER_02 (12:02):
Well, no, we had to fool with every state.
Every state's very proud of itslegislature and its laws and its
people and its businesses, sothey're they were all
independently uh negotiated.
Now, Rena Center had a uhlobbyist sort of state

(12:23):
nationwide.
Her name was Connie Campanella,and she owned stateside
associates that had lobbyists onthe ground in every state
capital, and she was on retainerwith Rena Center.
She was able to get the uhCouncil on State Governments to
come up with model rent-to-ownedlegislation.

(12:45):
It's in a book, 1987.
And once we had that book,Council on State Governments is
is generally viewed as asneutral.
It's neither it's neither uhleft nor right.
They just try to fashion and andthey do lots and lots of model

(13:06):
legislation, lots of bills.
They they create you know dozensand dozens every every year.
So they came up with arent-to-own bill, and we were
able to take that bill with theimprimature of the Council on
State governments around at thestates, and we probably got, if
I had to guess, a dozen statesto adopt that model legislation

(13:27):
almost verbatim.

SPEAKER_01 (13:30):
Well, I mean, it's it's good to have that handbook
to kind of go by.
Um, I got a question though.
You know, I mentioned somestates earlier.
They weren't as high on the listas I thought they were.
What were some of the statesthat were very difficult to get
to come along uh as far as therent or own legislation within

(13:50):
the state?

SPEAKER_02 (13:51):
Well, let's see.
Wisconsin has been impossible.
We've never gotten a law there,and we've been trying since
1983.
We've thrown bills in theWisconsin legislature, and even
with the assistance of uh thelargest uh furniture
manufacturer in America that'shome-based in Wisconsin and and

(14:11):
sells a lot of uh furniture torental dealers, the name of
which is lost in the mists.
Um, Ashley Furniture.
Thank you, Ashley, thank you.
Uh Minnesota was a nasty, nastyfight.
Uh, and we passed a law, but wedidn't get the language that we
wanted in that law.

(14:33):
And as a result, uh$35 millionlater in class action lawsuits,
uh, there is no rent-owned inMinnesota because rent-owned
transactions are not onlyrent-to-owned transactions
regulated by the rent-ownedstatute, but they are also
credit sales under the uhMinnesota Consumer Sales Act

(14:54):
with a finance charge cap of8.5% a year.
So you just can't do business atall in Minnesota, and we don't.
And then uh New Jersey, we haveno law in New Jersey.
We got hammered with a big classaction lawsuit,$110 million
class action lawsuit, and thelegislature said uh, you know,

(15:17):
we don't like you guys, and wedon't want you in this state,
and we ain't gonna help you.
So those were obviously thethree toughest states.
Other states that weredifficult.
Uh New York is we we've hadtrouble in New York.

(15:38):
The New York um we came out witha good bill early on.
They wanted to amend that law in2010, and we let them with um
increased price controls, andnow they're at it again uh in
New York.
So New York is a troublesomestate, Massachusetts,
troublesome state, Connecticut,troublesome state.

(16:00):
The Northeast states are havepaternalistic governments, they
think their job is to uh helppeople manage their money, and
so we have trouble in those kindof places.
California, you mentioned weworked on California for I know
a decade uh before we finallygot a law passed, and there's
still opposition to that law inCalifornia from the AG's office

(16:22):
today, as far as I know.
What and I got I I I'm curiousNorth Carolina.
North Carolina, I spent I'm fromNorth Carolina, uh, and the the
cocktail hit the fan in 83, andthey were uh the the Joanne, not

(16:46):
Joanne Faulkner, um well, therewas a legal aid lawyer there who
had been working Raleigh beforewe knew what was going on.
They'd already passed a law billthrough the House.
So we were on the defense.
We hired a former governor to beour lobbyist and ended up coming
up with a strange compromise atthe very last minute that

(17:09):
requires rental leaders to haveput up have a balloon purchase
option on their rentalagreements, which is against the
law in most states.
So North Carolina is trulyunique and was a very difficult
uh state for us.
It's not now.
And periodically there have beenefforts to bring the North
Carolina law in line with theother states and get rid of the

(17:32):
balloon and recognize our RTOtransactions as distinct from
credit sales, but none of thoseefforts have been successful
yet.
Will they keep it?

SPEAKER_01 (17:42):
I know that we do have uh we do have rental
dealers in in North Carolina,but that I I actually didn't
know about the balloon paymentat the end.
That seems actuallycounterproductive, but well, let
me tell you something.

SPEAKER_02 (17:52):
Deal as it don't know about that, it's cost them
a lot of money.
It cost one guy three milliondollars because he forgot to
calculate his balloon.
It's gotta be more than 10% ofthe cash price.
That's they've been we've beendoing business like that since
1983 in North Carolina.
So uh it works.
And and there are dealersbecause if if you add the
balloon, the transaction isotherwise unregulated in North

(18:14):
Carolina.
No caps on late fees, no caps onany other fees.
And dealers in North Carolinasort of like that, some of them.
Others, especially the guys thatthe multi-state dealers, North
Carolina's a little bit out ofstep, and they would like to
have more uniformity among thoseuh laws.
I don't know where that liestoday.

SPEAKER_01 (18:37):
So when the beginning, when everything got
together, you said that the ideawas that we're gonna get
together, get a federal lawpassed, and it would help
throughout the states.
And that didn't happen.
When did the strategy shift fromthis is not working on a federal
level?
It might be a better idea totackle this head on in 50

(18:57):
different states.

SPEAKER_02 (18:58):
Mid-80s.
Mid-80s.
We recognized having gone toWashington for, I don't know,
three, four years and gettingabsolutely no other than almost
lucking through with the um thevery first try, we got hammered
after that.
Uh and I told dealers, we'respending about a million dollars
a year in Washington.
I'm not sure we couldn't get alaw, I'm not sure we could get

(19:20):
that our rent-to-home billpassed if we spent 10 million.
And they kind of said, Well, weain't got 10 million, so um
forget it.
And and we sort of we we sort ofabandoned the federal effort.
Mid-80s.
We kept a presence up there.
We hired Tip O'Neill's son, Kipto uh be our lobbyist, just to

(19:41):
kind of watch things, and theLegal Services Corporation threw
bills in the hopper to turn rentowned into credit sales, but
those bills didn't go anywhere.
We threw bills in, we threwbills in every Congress up till
gosh, mid-90s.
Every two years we'd throw arent-own bill in the hopper, no
hearings, no nothing.

(20:04):
Then there was a final push inthe late 19 uh 2001.
We we got we muscled a bill.
We were uh the the Republicansare in charge.
We finally muscled a billthrough the House six w with six

(20:24):
votes.
It was however the math is, 2000and I mean 214 to 206, something
like that.
We we we got a standalonerent-owned bill passed through
the House of Representatives inWashington, D.C.
in 2001.
It died in the Senate.

(20:44):
We we we made another throw atit in 2005, but it it it was
just gonna cost way too muchmoney.
Uh and plus by then we had wealready had 47 state laws, so we
didn't really need a federal lawanymore.
So I'm not aware that thefederal laws even, I'm not sure
that anybody, other than uskeeping a presence there to make

(21:06):
sure nothing bad happens, I'mnot sure that uh there is a
serious effort to try to get afederal law anymore.

SPEAKER_01 (21:13):
No, as far as I know, it's not.
And you know, when we talk aboutit, there's there's always so
many different names that comeup, and and it's it it always
seems like a wee effort.
But in the beginning, you know,you and I think you even had
mentioned it, there was a lot ofdifferent views on how
rent-to-owned should be done.
Some regulated, some notregulated, so we had some bad

(21:35):
actors and some good actors.
How was it going through theselaws and also trying to unify
some of these dealers under thesame banner to get some of these
laws passed?

SPEAKER_04 (21:48):
How did we do that?

SPEAKER_01 (21:50):
By the hardest You know, after everybody like I I
would imagine that, you know, assome people come in now, and it
it even happens to this day.
You've got some people that arelike, I don't know if I need A
Pro.
I don't know if I need to be apart of this, you know,
association.
I think that somebody else isgoing to do the work for me,
right?
If I, if I pay my dues, it'sgreat.

(22:10):
But if somebody else pays theirdues, you're going to do it
either way.
Back then, I think there mighthave been probably even more of
a diverse group that kind offelt like, I haven't done it.
I've I'm kind of working my own.
I'm kind of, you know, this isthe this right now, for lack of
a better term, is the Wild West.
Why would I need to join?
Um, was the advocacy group'sability to start knocking out

(22:31):
some of these states and gettingthose laws passed?
Did that help unify a lot of thedifferent dealers and under the
April banner?

SPEAKER_02 (22:38):
Yeah, I think so.
I mean, there were we had boardmembers who said, I don't want
to be doing, I don't want anypublic relations, I don't want
to be in the newspaper, I got asweet little business, I want to
hide under a rock.
I don't want anybody to knowwhat I'm doing.
And so, you know, let's not dothis.
That voice existed.
But once we started getting thelaws passed and people started

(23:00):
breathing easier in those statessaying, hey, I got a real
business, there's a law thatprotects me, those voices got
got silenced.
And and they they either changedtheir minds or they left they
left the industry.

SPEAKER_01 (23:14):
So with the people that so you had a certain set of
people that thought this is notwhere we need to go, we could
probably just keep it quiet.
You had a certain set of peoplethat said, by all means, we need
to get this passed.
Who were some of the people onon the team of of APRO to say we
should probably push for thisand get this done?

SPEAKER_02 (23:34):
Where were some of the the big guys, the big guys,
the big guys, Renaissance,Remco, uh Color Time, they all
wanted they approved of ourlegislative efforts.
They may have not approved ofour uh instructional efforts
since they had their own ways oftraining their employees, but
but they the big guys there wasthen to some extent there is

(23:59):
still a a at least a debate.

SPEAKER_01 (24:03):
It doesn't rise the level of a it looks like we're
we're we hit a bump again.
Um I don't see you, but I'llwait for it to come back on the

(25:48):
crazy how sometimes, uh and andI I can't hear anything, but I'm
just saying, it's crazy howsometimes it seems to go through
just fine and then it's okay.
Something went wrong, we're notable to record anymore, everyone
else recorded.

SPEAKER_02 (26:36):
You got me?

SPEAKER_01 (26:38):
I got you.
All right, we're good.
Can you hear me okay?

SPEAKER_02 (26:40):
Yeah, I hear you fine.

SPEAKER_01 (26:42):
I or what that's it seems like uh uh and I don't
know if you can hear me, whenI'm looking at it, the camera
starts getting staticky.
Uh it actually just did rightthen.
It got real staticky and then itjust disappeared.

SPEAKER_02 (26:56):
Yeah, I'm I see I mean I see what you're I see
what you see.

SPEAKER_01 (27:00):
Oh, you're seeing that?
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (27:02):
Yeah, I'm seeing it.
It's curious.
That's all I can say.

SPEAKER_01 (27:06):
Curious.
Okay.
So right now, let's let's goback to the late, we're gonna
say late 70s, because I thinkApro was born in 1980, correct?
Correct.
So what got everybody togetherto say, you know what, we're
gonna need an advocacy group.

(27:26):
We're gonna we're gonna have tocreate something and get this
together.
What kind of led to thatdecision?

SPEAKER_02 (27:33):
Well, uh once again, that was Bud Holiday and Chuck
Sims.
Chuck Sims was uh probably thelargest, Color Time had more
stores, franchise, but ChuckSims had 50 Remco stores, and
Bud Holiday had 15 ABC stores,and and they were you know they
were enlightened.

(27:54):
They were they had vision aboutthe prospects of the making rent
own a real industry becauseuntil then it wasn't.
Um and so I'm not I'm not awarethat the reason for the first
meeting was to come up with somesort of advocacy uh philosophy.

(28:15):
They just were gonna meet.
They had never met before.
They were just stray rent-ownedstores around the country, and
Bud Holliday wrote a letter toall the ones he could find going
through the yellow pages saying,hey, we're gonna have a meeting
of rental dealers, you'reinvited, it's free.
And so people came just to uhchew the fat.

(28:36):
They talked about uh accountingissues, they talked about
finance issues.
They didn't really talk aboutrent, they didn't talk about
legal issues at that very firstmeeting.
Uh I was the only lawyer there,and I didn't I never heard of
rent-town.
I didn't talk about rent-ownedlegal issues or any I talked
about the Federal TradeCommission and the overreach of
government regulation verygenerally.

(28:58):
So that was really not, to mymind at least, the purpose of
that organizational meeting.
That came very quickly later.
Once they decided, yes, let'shave a club.
If we're gonna have a club, whatare we gonna do with it?
Well, let's go get some lawspassed.
I mean, that that's to my mindthat's the order of things.

(29:21):
That's how it came about.

SPEAKER_01 (29:23):
Do you remember at the time how they devised how
people would be uh a member andthe membership dues and how that
would how that would come along?

SPEAKER_02 (29:31):
Oh, you bet.
I was at all those meetings.
Uh and it was very important.
The original board of directors,there was a substantial
percentage of that membership ofthe board of directors said, we
don't want to help, you know, wewe're we want to help make
rent-owned legal, maybe.
We do not want to help peopleget in the rent-owned business,

(29:52):
and you can't we're not gonnalet people who just want to rent
TVs be members.
So the very first version of thebylaws was that you had to have
standalone location and 150 BORbefore you could be a member.
You had to already be in therental business before you could

(30:13):
join APRO.
That was a huge issue.

SPEAKER_01 (30:16):
I I I actually have never even come close to knowing
that.
I'm very glad that you mentionedthat.
You know, talking about the thebylaws and and some of the
things that were created, therewas some framework um that you
know, I I believe I see it inevery April magazine.
It's somewhere, somewhere inthere, it has like these, and I
believe it's uh, I don't thinkit's 10.

(30:37):
I think is it 20, 20 different,you know, areas of of what it is
that you know, APRO um, youknow, basically the do's and
don'ts of of that.
And you know, back back thenthere was so many different
views on rent to own.
We had a PR problem.
Uh, I think somebody else put itvery you know elegantly.

(30:58):
We had a PR problem in the rentto own industry.
And uh when did when did thatwhen did the FTC kind of really
start looking at RTO as an issueand then become a kind of a
thorn in the side of of therental dealers?

SPEAKER_02 (31:11):
Well, we got a very favorable uh the FTC wasn't very
that the FTC's been around, waswas around before April was
around, and but they they werethey left us alone.

SPEAKER_01 (31:41):
Oh, I hear something.
You do?
I do.
I I can hear you.
I don't see you, but I candefinitely hear you.

SPEAKER_02 (31:47):
Okay, well good.
Well at least we can talk whileI wonder what the hell is going
on.

SPEAKER_01 (31:54):
So the FTC was never really a big problem, not as
much as the CFPB was.

SPEAKER_02 (32:00):
Uh no.
Answer no.
Okay.
And uh the the Federal TradeCommission uh in '98, I think,
studied the rent-owned industry.
We helped them, we gave themsome statistics and let them
look around our stores, and theypublished the uh they published
a report on on the rent-ownedindustry, and we liked the

(32:23):
report.
The only thing that we didn'tlike was their their analysis of
the keep rate.
They said it was two-thirds, andand we just knew that was
incorrect.
That that two-thirds of thepeople were not renting long
enough to own.
That that our percentage wasunder 30%.

SPEAKER_01 (32:44):
It was kind of the opposite way.

SPEAKER_02 (32:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that but otherwise, it was afairly good report, and we used
it politically as as needsrequired.
And my recollection was thatcame in '98.
Uh and the CFPB, we were able towork that the Dodd-Frank Act.
We had some very good friends inWashington by then, because

(33:07):
we've been going up there for 25years.
Uh, and so we were able to bekept out of the Dodd-Frank Act.
That made the Dodd-Frank peoplevery unhappy that because the
law is pretty clear that uh ifyou have an initial term of your
rental transaction of less than90 days, the CFPB has no

(33:30):
jurisdiction over you.
And so they've they've whinedand moaned about that since 2010
when the law was passed.
But we've been largelysuccessful.
They they've taken a few shotsat the big guys, but but they
haven't heard anybody.
They've sort of been gutted herelately.

SPEAKER_01 (33:48):
Well, they they have been, and I agree with you that.
I'm not I'm not actually uh toobothered.
It doesn't keep me awake atnight, but I could tell you
what.
I'm I'm curious though.
Henry B.
Gonzalez comes up a lot.
What do you remember whatexactly it was that sparked his
initial disdain for rent to ownand his drive to get rent to own

(34:10):
kind of shut down?

SPEAKER_02 (34:13):
We'll never know that.
I mean, I I asked his office andthey were not forthcoming.
Uh, that was in '93, '94, whenhe had public hearings.
Uh, and we don't know thegenesis of his interest in rent
to own.
But it was it was a it was ascary moment because he was a

(34:36):
powerful figure.
He was he was head of hiscommittee.
Uh the Democrats were in controlof the House, but we were
successful in keeping his and heand he threw a bit he had a
four-hour hearing.
We had 15 minutes, three and ahalf, we had three hours and 45
minutes of rent-owned bashing.
And then we got to talk for 15minutes, and he said, Thank you

(34:57):
very much.
He threw a bill in the hopper,but he was unable to get his
bill out of his own committee.
So we were we we were fairlywell organized by the mid-90s
and sort of knew how to fightpolitically.
So it we got a lot of badpublicity.
The Wall Street Journal came outwith uh couch payments and

(35:18):
assorted other ugly things onthe very front page of the Wall
Street Journal.

SPEAKER_00 (35:23):
Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 (35:24):
Shortly after the uh after the Gonzalez hearings.
You know, we we know how to takea punch.

SPEAKER_01 (35:35):
I think that's one thing I can definitely say.

SPEAKER_02 (35:37):
We've taken a few, and uh, you know, we whipped we
whipped him.
We whipped him.
He couldn't get it, he couldn'tget his own bill out of his own
committee.
And that's now there was that'sthat's weak politics.
That's what that is.

SPEAKER_01 (35:49):
Right, absolutely.
Um so in the beginning, there'sthese, there's a lot of
different viewpoints on how rentown works, how rent throne gets
done.
Um, you know, do we want toapproach the laws?
Do we not approach the laws?
Do we form a committee?
Do we not form a committee?
We get it all, it starts goingthrough.
That's exactly the way itstarted out.

(36:09):
We start you know, we startgetting together, these letters
are sent out, people startshowing up.
At what point in time did Aprilstart taking uh, you know, a
reasonable idea that throughApril, these rent-to-own
practices and tactics should beon a level playing field,
universally, as much as possiblethroughout rent-to-own?

SPEAKER_02 (36:33):
Well, I think a lot of us always felt that way.
You know, we wanted, yeah, sure,we want to, we would love to
have had a federal bill.
We couldn't get one.
And to the extent possible, thethe state laws are reasonably
uniform.
I mean, you know, some guys have$5 late charge, some guys have

(36:55):
$10, some guys have noprocessing fees, some guys have
a$10 processing fee, but theyall recognize the RTO
transaction as separate anddistinct from a credit sale, and
then they go about differentkinds of disclosures that they
want.
And you know, we can live withthose.

(37:15):
We can live with those.
And and over the years, what ithas meant is multi-state dealers
have to have a differentagreement for, if not every
state, for most states.
Occasionally you can combine uhrental agreements.
That's not the end of the world.

SPEAKER_01 (37:31):
So when you have back in the beginning, um, there
were certain dealers that thatdid certain things that kind of
looked that that left a blackeye in the industry as far as to
their collection practices ortheir sales practices.
And we've mostly come all theway through that.
But what was it what was it thatApril was able to do to kind of

(37:53):
change the viewpoint of ourindustry, at least from April's
point of view?

SPEAKER_02 (37:59):
Well, I mean, we always thought at APRO we were
going to put the industry's bestfoot forward.
We were gonna make the industrylook good.
And if you didn't uh if youdidn't subscribe to that
philosophy, you didn't want tobe a member.
I mean, we we we had we had hugefights early on about whether

(38:20):
you could disclose the totalcost or not.
Some guy said, Oh hell, if I putthe total cost of those TVs in
my rental agreement, nobody'llever rent one.
And we say, Well, yeah, theywill.
We don't care.
You know, some guy's been doingit all along.
And and so they came back andsaid, Well, if I have to put
that number in there, I'm gonnabury it in the fine print.
I'm not, you know, I don't wantpeople to see it.

(38:41):
So uh they just lost.
Those guys lost.
And and the better, the the thebetter angels prevailed and and
have and have ever since.
And so they there ain't many badguys left.

SPEAKER_01 (38:56):
How long so if if you were to if you were to put a
time frame on when the you knowit tipped for we're gonna do
this the right way, we're gonnaput our our numbers out there
all the way, we're not gonnakind of shy away from that.
What time frame would you say?
Was that early on in in April'sinduction or did that happen mid
eighties, late 80s?

SPEAKER_02 (39:13):
From the very first time I ever met rental leaders,
I said, fellas, because I I youknow I wasn't a rental leader,
and um I just was making anobservation as a uh lawyer and a
college professor.
I said, fellas, if you gotsomething to hide, you ain't
gonna make it.
And so uh get over it.

(39:34):
Get over it.
You tell them any damn thing youwant to.
You're not a credit sale undertruth and lending and under the
state laws, so you're safethere.
But you've got to you gotta youknow you've got to tell the
truth about this transaction.
And and if you're not willing todo that, your days are numbered.
That was my message from theget-go.
It it's still my message.

(39:56):
And uh, you know, that thatmessage that message won the
day.
We're not to my the industry'snot hiding anything.

SPEAKER_01 (40:05):
Well, no, if you've ever gone through a rental
agreement nowadays, uh, I Icouldn't imagine anything that's
not in it now.
I've always been in out of thestate of Florida, so I only know
the state of Florida's rentalagreement front and back, and I
could probably read it to youand kind of quote every corner
of it.
But I couldn't imagine anythingin there that's not being said.
Everything from how much toweekly, monthly, and and say

(40:26):
monthly rate is, what do youknow, the what your fees are,
what your total cost is, whatyou can and can't do, the
ability to return serviceloaners, uh, you know,
contacting you.
I think everything in there isis is pretty simple, easy, and
and step forward.
Who actually, and I never reallyasked this question, but was

(40:47):
April a part of devising therental agreements per state?

SPEAKER_02 (40:51):
No, no, we didn't want that liability uh in case
in case we did it wrong.
So I've written a lot of rentalagreements as a lawyer.
I have malpractice insurance andI've written a lot of agreements
uh for rental dealers because Igot malpractice in case I screw
it up.
But APRO was never in thebusiness of providing, believe

(41:12):
me.
Uh members said guys would say,Yeah, I want to join APRO, give
give me a rental agreement.
And we said, No, we don't dothat.
And they sort of groused aboutit and said, geez, that's
awfully cheap of you.
And I tried to, I'd have toexplain it's a it's a liability
issue.
That if your rental agreementgets screwed up, we don't want
April being sued.

SPEAKER_01 (41:31):
Well, I mean it makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_02 (41:33):
Sue your lawyer if you want to, but don't sue
April.
And so April's never done that.

SPEAKER_01 (41:38):
So I do have a question.
This is a personal question.
This is somewhat of a personalquestion, but this is definitely
an Edwin question.
I heard that at some pointElizabeth Warren was actually
your neighbor.
She was.
She was my next door neighbor.
We had was that was that inTexas?

SPEAKER_02 (41:55):
Yeah, it was in Austin.
She was teaching bankruptcy.
She was she was a bankruptcy uhprofessor in the law school, and
I was a B law professor in thebusiness school, and she I was
single and wrote a Harley.
And she was uh she was married,had two kids.
Her husband had to commute toSt.

(42:17):
Louis.
He was a he was a collegeprofessor, uh a law professor,
teaching legal history at the Iwant to say University of
Washington in St.
Louis, maybe.
And so he had a he had a fly upthere.
Uh and she was uh yeah, she wasa very well-known uh bankruptcy
lawyer, professor.

(42:38):
So we had lunch once, and shecould tell, and I could tell,
that we were coming fromdifferent views.
Different sides would be polite.
So we didn't have dinner beyondthat one time, but yes, she was
my next door neighbor.

SPEAKER_01 (42:53):
I I you know when I when I heard that, I was like,
really?

SPEAKER_02 (42:56):
That's great, it's amazing.
She put on a headdress and movedon to Harvard.

SPEAKER_01 (43:00):
She did.
She did well, I you know, I I doknow that she was born in
Oklahoma, born and raised.
She had to going down to Texasto teach in several different
places, and then eventuallyended up in Massachusetts.
And uh, you know, when I heardthat, I was like, there's that's
you know, it's it's a smallworld no matter how you look at
it.
Talking about people in the inthe government, were there

(43:21):
anybody in the government thatstood out to you as advocates
for what we did?
So we can always say Henry B.
Gonzalez was somebody who didnot like the rental transaction
and did everything he could tokind of go against us.
Was there somebody else in theother side of the fence that was
on the side of uh APRO and rentto own in the industry and said,
you know what, I think this is agreat idea?

SPEAKER_02 (43:41):
We had numerous friends in the legislature.
Uh Lacey Clay was arepresentative from Missouri, a
black guy, uh one of our realchampions, and helped us stay
out of Dodd Frank.
Uh Barney Frank was a goodfriend of ours.
And um there'd be a long I'dhave to I I don't do names my

(44:05):
brain won't do names very well.
We had a lot of very good uhfriends in the legislature,
people that we supported and anduh met with and knew very well,
people who visited our stores,understood the transaction.
Uh there was another uh blackrep trying to remember where he

(44:25):
was from, who had who had renteda you know his dorm, his bed and
his TV when he was in college.
So he understood Rentone and wasone of our champions.
Name is gone.
I'm lucky to remember LaceyClay.
Uh yeah, we had good friends.
We we had good friends.
Um and probably this day andtime, we got more good friends

(44:47):
than we have enemies, quitefrankly.

SPEAKER_01 (44:50):
Well, that's you know, it's comforting to hear
because a lot of what happenedin the late 70s or early 80s,
and a lot of people what they'retelling me that there was there
was this basically this fog,this cloud of we don't really
know what's going on.
We we don't see a lot of others,and it's not as connected, the
world isn't as connected uh backthen as it is today.
I mean, you know, when you sayuh, you know, that Bud Holliday

(45:11):
was sending out letters uh fromthe yellow pages, which is
something that I remember, a lotof people now can, you know,
literally go on Google and typein, you know, real dealers in
this state or, you know, howmany within five miles, and you
have an answer within seconds,and you can send them an email
and probably get that all donein 10 minutes, where back then,
you know, you literally had tolook it up, write it down, send

(45:32):
out a letter, and then hopefullyget a response.
Um, so it's you know, there wasthis veil of, you know, almost
like the fog of war.
It was you don't know what'sgoing on.
You don't know how it is.
And then as the association gottogether and started creating
what they started doing with youand others, Bud Holliday and and
Chuck Sims were able to kind ofstart molding together, I think

(45:53):
that kind of cleared away thefog and and kind of made up you
know a clear path.
As you were doing this, I I dohave a question, two questions.
Where did the name April comefrom?
Who who where did that whocreated that?

SPEAKER_02 (46:07):
Chuck Sims had a uh advertising agency, and he went
to them and he said, We'recoming up, we're we're gonna
create a trade association, comeup with some names.
So they gave us four or fivepages of words matched together.
It started out as theassociation of professional
rental something.

(46:30):
It wasn't uh organizations,agents, companies, and that and
that morphed into I I to thisday I don't remember how it
moved from uh professional toprogressive, but it did.
So uh historical accident is thebest I can offer.

SPEAKER_01 (46:50):
And that wasn't an Edwin thing you didn't come up
with that name, Ed?

SPEAKER_02 (46:53):
I did not.
I did not.
I came up with a lot of crap,but not that.
Not the name.

SPEAKER_01 (46:59):
And so as we create APRO, we get the name, we're
starting to go forward.
Do you believe, in your mind,and in your opinion, that the
creation of APRO and having someof these legendary names that
helped create it with you kindof started allowing more people
to come into the business uhthan probably would have if you

(47:21):
didn't create it?

SPEAKER_02 (47:22):
Absolutely.
Yes, yes.
It it first of all, peoplebecame aware of rent-owned
because rent-owned was reallyjust in a crack.
I mean, if you advertising wasminimal, you might have had an
ad in the yellow pages, you butyou weren't gonna you weren't on
TV.
There was nobody advertisingrent-town on TV back in those

(47:43):
days.
Uh and remember when we firststarted, all we rented was TVs,
19-inch collar portables, andthen when when they came, big
25-inch collar consoles.
That that was the that was ourproduct mix.
Two.
We had two.
And uh so we you know, we justevolved from there.

(48:04):
But but yes, I I think APRO'sexistence and our you know, we
fought back.
I I used to keep these notebooksof negative press and positive
press about the rent-ownedindustry.
Negative press was that big,positive press was that big.
I mean, they just weren't peopleweren't saying very many nice
things about rent owned, but thefact that we were that that that

(48:26):
we existed, that we were outthere, we had a trade
association, we had conventions,people could see, hey, this is a
real business, count me in.
I don't think it would havegrown like it did without April.

SPEAKER_01 (48:41):
As as it grew back then, like you said, it there
wasn't a lot known, it became alot more known as as it formed.
Was there any problem with thewith the uh uh the CPA at that
point in time?

SPEAKER_02 (48:58):
The what?

SPEAKER_01 (49:00):
Um I just lost it.
I just had it here right here,and I had it right in front of
me, and and I just lost it.
I can't believe I just lost it.
You know what?
You know what, Ed, when you saysometimes that it just goes
away, it happens, it's a realthing.
The customer protection uhadvocates, um, you know, I was a

(49:21):
discussion that rental dealers,some of them, didn't want to put
their numbers out because fearof retaliation.
Somebody also has the ability tolook at that and go, you're not
doing everything that you shouldfor the customers.
Was there any associations thatactually challenged April and
said, you know, this could bebetter?

(49:42):
And in turn, APRO was able tosay, you know what, this could
be better and and kind of wentalong with it.

SPEAKER_02 (49:49):
Well, I'm not sure I'm following.
We certainly had battles withthe at the time um furniture
rental industry, Grantry, Court,and Aaron's.
Aaron's was not in rent owneduntil the late uh eighties.
So early on in the early 80s, Imean Ahrons was there and it was

(50:11):
a big company, and it I think itwas publicly traded, but it was
a rental company.
They they uh they rentedapartments full of furniture to
visiting executives six-monthdeals.
So they were under the FederalConsumer Leasing Act, uh, they
weren't doing rent-owned.
And they barged into our boardCharlotte Charlotte Alter Milk

(50:32):
and some of his colleagues fromCourt and Grantry barged into
our one of our board meetingsand said, You you rent-owned
scallywags being polite, areruining the good name of rental.
We want you to change your name.
Quit being quit callingyourselves rent-owned, quit
calling yourselves rental, besomething else.
We are the we're the rentalindustry.

(50:54):
And your your your collectionpractices and your pricing and
all the bad things that you'redoing are hurting our image.

SPEAKER_01 (51:03):
I can only imagine how that conversation went.

SPEAKER_02 (51:06):
Our guys jumped up, you know, fists clenched.
Jump on in here, fellas.
You want some of this?

SPEAKER_00 (51:14):
I can only imagine how that conversation.
I could, I would have, I wouldhave loved to be a fly on that
wall.
It was testy.
It was testy.

SPEAKER_01 (51:22):
But so let me let me rephrase that question in a
different light so that maybe ituh it sounds a little bit
different.
There were other agenciesaround, there's always agencies,
you know, the FTC, the CFPB.
Was there any agencies that kindof worked with APRO in order to
help advocate for the rentalindustry or to help correct it
and guide it and give it anorthern star?

(51:43):
Or was it just APRO?

SPEAKER_02 (51:45):
Just APRO.
There were no governmentagencies interested in assisting
the rent-owned industry in thatday or in this day, in my mind.
So no, no, no, never.
Never.

SPEAKER_01 (52:00):
Wow.
Was there any consumer groupsthat that wanted to help out?

SPEAKER_02 (52:05):
No.
Consumer groups, by definition,want to help consumers, they
don't want to help businesses.

SPEAKER_01 (52:10):
That is true.

SPEAKER_02 (52:11):
That is true.
They were always on the otherside.
By default, they were on theother side.
I hear I suppose, I suppose wewe may have prevailed upon some
uh local chambers of commerce.
We made friends with the BetterBusiness Bureau here and there.
Nebraska Better Business Bureau.

(52:32):
Uh Lynn Leach is tight with theBetter Business Bureau in his
state.
So they were never antagonistic.
Were they helpful?
No, I'm not so sure.
Uh Chambers of Commerce, youknow, we're businesses, so they
might have thrown us a fig leaf.
I don't know.
Uh I I certainly don't rememberany champions of rent to own

(52:56):
other than April.

SPEAKER_01 (52:57):
Now, were there any agencies, or I should say, any
organizations that were formedthroughout the years that didn't
last like APRO did?
Was April a one-time wonder, alightning in a bottle where it
was started 1980s and despitetrials and tribulations, has
made it all the way through?
Or were there other agenciesthat started uh, whether it be
the early 80s or anytime, thatwere either somewhat around the

(53:20):
area of of what April did ortheir own advocacy group as far
as Rentone is concerned and justdidn't make it?

SPEAKER_02 (53:26):
Well, you had state groups.
So um when the when the when theTexas bill, Ernestine
Glossbrenner's bill, was beingdebated in the early 90s, there
was a another group besides APROthat they were in the small loan

(53:48):
business, but had a few TVs outon rent, and they wanted a voice
as to what how this bill wasgoing to look.
And so they they created theTexas Association, TERRA, Texas
Association of Rental Agents.
And they had a voice.
And so any number of any numberof states, once we went into a
state, they would form a stategroup.

(54:09):
The Alabama rental dealers, thePennsylvania rental dealers, New
York rental dealers.
And the problem with thosestates two problems.
One, APRO's never really beenable to figure out how to mesh
state associations and APRO.
It's always been awkward.
Number two, once the law gotpassed, state associations said

(54:33):
they kind of went the way of allflesh because they lost.
Now, Florida is a notableexception.
Y'all have a very viable andlively uh state association.
You go to the legislature everyyear, and it's alive and well.
That is not the case with manystates.
Once the law gets passed,dealers say, eh, we don't need a

(54:53):
state association anymore, or Iquit, I'm not paying dues
anymore, leave me alone.
So um, but but we did have stateassociations that they had their
own kinds of connections in thestate houses that we didn't
have, APRO necessarily.
So you had all those, you hadthose groups.
Almost every state where therewas a law work being worked on

(55:16):
had a state association at onetime or another.

SPEAKER_01 (55:20):
And how with when it comes to you being legal counsel
at April, how involved were youin helping forming those state
associations?

SPEAKER_02 (55:31):
Oh, we went we went around and helped him.
We had the the state uh TigerJohn Cleek out of Missouri, took
that, he he strapped that on.
We created the State AssociationCoordinating Committee, S A C C
maybe, uh, and you know, flew toOregon.
He and I went around variousplaces.

(55:53):
We had modeled bylaws for stateassociations and would give
seminars about here's what youneed to do to organize your
state.
You need to, you know, uh, I canremember sitting in Tennessee
trying to organize a Tennesseerental leaders.
Nobody wanted to be thepresident.
And I said, listen, folks, it'sit's three o'clock this

(56:13):
afternoon.
We're not leaving until somebodystands up and says, Okay, I'll
be the president.
And shortly thereafter, somebodystood up.
I don't remember who, LowrySchrader, somebody.
Uh Shannon struck, somebody.
Shannon was there, I remember.
Um, so we we had growing stateassociations had growing pains,
and uh a few, California,California had a good

(56:37):
association, but as soon as thelaw got passed, disappeared.
Um Terra.
Terra used to be, Terra used tohave a hundred thousand dollars
in the bank in dues.
The Texas Association of RentalAgents, separate and apart from
APRO, used to have bigconventions.
Uh I I I gave a seminar at aTARRA meeting where there were

(56:58):
200 people there.
Terra's disappeared off the faceof the earth.
It's just gone because becauserental is not a legal issue
anymore in Texas.
It hadn't been for a long, longtime, other than the theft of
rental property issue, which isit's really not an issue now.
You can't do it.
You can't throw people in jailfor stealing TVs in Texas.

SPEAKER_01 (57:20):
Well, so so going into the close, I gotta know.
You were there since theinduction of the very first
meeting and made it all the waythrough.
Edwin's names is all over thehalls of rent to own.
If you had to say uh something,and and and now that you're
retired, you kind of get to sitback and look at everything
maybe from a different point ofview.

(57:41):
Is there something that APROisn't doing now that probably
you think that they should do orget into or possibly look into
in the future?

SPEAKER_02 (57:50):
Let me tell you, us finding, and and I and I can't
claim responsibility, although Iwas on the committee, I suppose,
uh the search committee, findingCharles Smithgall was a it's
like going to Arkansas andfinding a diamond there.
You can you can you can sip fordiamonds in Arkansas, I think.
Uh Smithgall has great vision,and uh, you know, he's working

(58:13):
on this artificial intelligenceproject of his.
Uh we're talking about Smithherman, right?

SPEAKER_01 (58:19):
Smitherman.

SPEAKER_02 (58:20):
Yes, yes, yes.
What did I say?
Smith Gall.
Smithgall, sorry.
Those were those Smith Gall wasa um Aaron's franchisee, the
largest Aaron's franchisee.
I'm talking about Smith.
Yeah, Charles, thank you.
Uh apologize.
He has great vision.
Uh he is moving APRO forward inways that I never even
contemplated.

(58:40):
So high energy and uh greatinsights.
So I I predict great things forthe association.
As long as the legal issueconfronted APRO, trade
associations do well whenthey've got a big specter that
they've got to defend against.
We lost that.
You know, I mean APRO APROhasn't been threatened with

(59:04):
legal uh extinction in 30 years.
So what did it what do you do ifyou're a trade association and
you don't have a common enemyanymore?
Charles has figured that out andand how to keep people
interested in a cohesive uhgroup of competitors.
So my I tip my hat to himwhenever I see him and say he's

(59:28):
doing a great job, and he is.

SPEAKER_01 (59:30):
I'm gonna I'm gonna agree with you 100% on there.
I believe that he is.
I love the direction that'sgoing on.
As a matter of fact, you knowthat this is also part of what
uh the research project thathe's doing, and and to put us an
APRO up front and personal withwith the new way of things, the
AI, the chat bots, andeverything in between.
I think he's doing an amazingjob as well.

(59:50):
So I will make sure I pass thatalong.
But you guys, I appreciate yousitting here with my with our
conversation with Mr.
Ed Wynne, who is now retired,the ex-legal counsel for April
for over 40 plus years.
If you have any questions for Edor me at the podcast, please hit
me up at pete at thertoshowpodcast.com, or you can
go on the website atwww.thertoshowpodcast.com, see

(01:00:12):
what's going on there, check usout.
Don't forget that LedgeConhappens every single year.
I'm discussing a lot of legalissues with the legal counsel,
Mr.
Edwin, but the reason I'm doingit is because he has all that
experience.
And you know what?
It's great to have advocateslike Mr.
Edwin, who's done it for manyyears, Charles Smitherman, and a
whole bunch of names that we canmention.
We'd love to see you on CapitolHill and LedgeCon in April

(01:00:34):
coming in 2026.
So if you can do that, make surethat you listen to the show to
be aware to find out how to dothat.
And you can also find us onFacebook, Instagram, LinkedIn,
and YouTube where you're gonnafind us.
Make sure you subscribe and makesure you go to the website and
buy some swag.
Ed, I appreciate you taking outyour time today.
I know that we had a little bitof a change this morning.
We are today that you had tokind of go into the office,

(01:00:55):
which I know is probably notwhat you're used to anymore, but
I'm so glad that you were ableto do it and make some time for
us.
I do appreciate that.
And I and I will tell you guysas always get your collections
low to get your sales high.
Have a great one.
Thanks, Ed.

SPEAKER_04 (01:01:11):
I really appreciate it.