Late last year, the rent-to-own industry lost one of its early and most courageous champions. Barry Gambini – originally from Santa Rose, California, and lately from Exeter, California – died in hospice care surrounded by his loving family on December 8, 2023. He was 81.
Gambini was APRO’s second President and Board Chair, and the first to be elected to three consecutive terms. He was never part of the “Texas Mafia,” all of those early dealers who cut their RTO teeth under the tutelage of one of the Talley brothers – Ernie or Willie – in their Mr. T’s store.
In the late 60s, Gambini – a Maytag salesman at the time – stumbled into rent-to-own, more or less by accident. He took 20 used coin-operated turquoise washers from a laundromat owner in trade for some new Maytag washers. Not wanting to just toss them, Gambini polished up the used machines and put them in farmworker camps in the San Joachim valley. Each week, he made his rounds, emptying the coin boxes and splitting the quarters with the landowner or tenant. Thus arose appliance rental as a business in California for the first time.
As soon as Gambini learned of APRO’s existence, he began attending meetings. His affability, charisma, generosity, and insights quickly got him elected to the Board of Directors and on to the Presidency. It was the early 80s, and RTO was an unknown proposition legally. Gambini made frequent coast-to-coast trips to Washington, D.C. – on his own nickel and with a handful of other rental dealers – to lobby for legal recognition of the rent-to-own transaction. Early on, lobbyists told these dealers it would be an easy fix to append some brief RTO legislation onto a bigger bill moving through Congress. But they were wrong; there was no quick or easy fix to be had – but not for lack of trying by Gambini and his colleagues.
Once, Gambini flew to Boston, Massachusetts, to the headquarters of the National Consumer Law Center, the chief opposition to rent-to-own’s legal recognition at the time, to make the case for federal RTO legislation. He underwent hectoring about his business’ inherent evils, listening to complaints about not only RTO, but also any company in America with profits in excess of 15 percent; the attorneys thought such companies’ “excess profits” should be taxed at 100 percent.
Gambini skillfully guided APRO though perilous times and even some internal conflict as the fledgling group tried to find its footing and purpose. For example, early on, the board was divided over whether the association should support efforts to require disclosure of the total cost of ownership within rentto- own transactions. Half argued that if rental dealers had to put those numbers in their agreements, no one would ever rent a TV; the other half argued that if the industry had to hide the important financial details of the transaction, RTO would never grow and would more likely die on the vine. Gambini patiently listened while the two sides made their cases, then gently but firmly put his thumb on the side of complete and honest disclosure, which ultimately won the day.
As part of his platform, Gambini created and then spearheaded the President’s Panel, a series of day long seminars held in cities around the country over the course of his presidency to show dealers best practices for RTO in an attempt to steer them away from some of the harsher practices that existed in those early days. The Panel consisted of Gambini himself who talked about operations, going over with attendees the profit and loss statements from his best and his worst performing stores. Bud Holladay was the panelist for collections. Jay D. Sprecker, CPA, ran the accounting portion of the seminar, and Ed Winn, III, APRO general counsel, conducted the legal portion.
In 1983, Gambini owned a chain of 35 RTO stores, all in California, and had set up the company to roll out a national franchise program when James Archer, another RTO dealer with a chain of stores, bought Gambini’s operation for 13 times monthly revenues, the highest multiple in the industry at the time and until Tom Devlin sold Rent-A-Center to Thorn EMI for 34 times monthly revenues the next year.
Gambini was so popular among rental dealers across the country that the board of directors quickly adopted the “Gambini Rule” in the association’s bylaws that allowed him to stay on the board and to finish out his term as President even though he was no longer in the business.
Gambini was never just a rental dealer. He and wife Susan, were active in the Child Welfare League of America, the California State Foster Parent Association, and the federal Child Abuse Council. Together, Barry and Susan fostered some 130 children in their home, ultimately adopting six foster kids as their own to go along with their three boys. They had a special affinity for new-borns addicted to crack cocaine as a result of their mothers’ addiction, and had great success weaning those infants back to normalcy.
Once out of RTO, Gambini found that he liked being retired, although he dabbled in a few businesses over the years, including selling used BMW’s, real estate and insurance. He set up a company selling business insurance lines, primarily to RTO dealers, Relation Insurance Services, that Jeannette Beardsley owns and manages today.
He kept in contact with the industry over the years, through Jeannette and Ed Winn III. He attended a handful of conventions in the 90’s and 2000’s especially those in Las Vegas and Reno. However, he mainly contented himself with kids and grandkids in his later years.
APRO and the RTO industry are better and further along for having had Gambini’s talents on offer and his skilled leadership abilities on the association’s tiller in those early days. He was truly one of the good ones, nay, one of the very best, and he will be missed by all those who had the privilege of knowing him.
Ed Winn III serves as APRO General Counsel. For legal advice, members in good standing can email legal@rtohq.org.
