Rent-to-own News - New RTOHQ: The Magazine: A 'Winn' for the industry

By APRO Executive Director Bill Keese,

As we gather in Louisville to celebrate 30 years of association history, we should recognize that there has been one constant since the beginning of APRO: Ed Winn III.

Ed wrote the original bylaws, incorporated the Association of Progressive Rental Organizations, served as its first executive director, serves the industry as APRO’s legal counsel, befriended countless rental dealers, has written hundreds of articles and briefs about the rent-to-own transaction, saved most rental dealers lots of money with his no-nonsense legal advice and has been a loyal advisor to every APRO president.

As a teenager tooling around in his father’s Citröen—which he loved—Ed never imagined that he would spend half of his life helping build an industry and protecting it from all detractors. He is the only son (Ed has two sisters) of a college professor father and a Southern belle mother. He taught tennis at a girls summer camp in his youth, attended college in France for a year and taught business law at The University of Texas immediately after graduating from law school.

I met Ed on the day of my interview for the job as APRO’s executive director in July 1989. I was waiting in the reception area of the APRO office when Ed walked in and said—looking over his half glasses— “You Bill Keese? Follow me.” It was the beginning of a friendship that has lasted 21 years.

During my first six months at APRO, Ed, his wife Elizabeth and I would meet every Wednesday evening after work, which was to become my education in the  world of rent-to-own.

Sometimes we would just go to dinner, sometimes we would go bowling and other times go shopping, but always we talked about APRO and the industry’s history, the current state of affairs and what might happen to rent-to-own in the future. No one could have had a finer mentor.

By my calculations, we have talked about rent-to-own at least once a day for nearly 7,000 days since I was hired. I learn something new from Ed every day. Rent-to-own has been fortunate to have latched on to such an attorney and  friend for the past 30 years. Every owner, every co-worker and every customer has benefited in some important way from this man, whether you know it or not.

We chose to highlight Ed in this issue so that all of you could get to know him better. There is a misconception among some that Ed is arrogant; let me dispel that now. Far from it—Ed actually is a very shy person. It took many of us a lot of coaxing to get his approval to put his mug on the cover of our magazine. Ed doesn’t like the limelight, but after 30 years, he will just have to suffer through it.

This issue also features our outgoing president, Tiger John Cleek, highlighting some of the most important events of the past two years. Tiger is not running for another term as president, nor is he running for another term on the APRO board of directors, but we will continue to benefit from his experience for another year as he will serve on the board as immediate past president.

Download full issue here.