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| Arpil 28, 2000 Dear Kit, Received the e-mail comment that was forwarded from another anonymous dip shit who doesn't know what he is talking about. I can tell he doesn't because Danny Day was with a company called SouthWind Charter Leasing (now defunct) As anyone who carefully read my comments would know I said that I was on the "original conference call" not a meeting. In fact the meeting your ghost writer mentioned was, proposed on that very call. I declined to participate in that meeting which is why I wasn't there. Several of those people later became the charter members of the NAELB. If you go back and look at my original e-mail I did not put "Joe Bonano", I put "Bo Bohanon"( I also seem to remember he was on the call). As I said it was 10 years ago. I believe that you edited the name thinking that I had made a typo.( I did edit it, for the reason Bob states--Kit ) Several other long time NAELB members may remember that call. Also present on the call were, I believe Dave Pitman and Bob Otterbacher. As I remember the meeting was going to be held in Atlanta, but I'm not sure. Jim ? somebody(can't remember his last name) and Stan Nathanson were there too. In fact I have to chuckle again at the "level the playing field for brokers" comment. As I said it was more like "we're gonna band together and bring these funding sources to their knees" Someday I'll tell you who said it exactly and I'll tell you the real exact quote and leave in the deleted expletives. Not all of the people on that call were of that mind but several of them were hostile. It all stemmed from the fact that they felt they weren't getting a fair deal from several of the large funding sources. Denrich, at the time was starting to call in some Reps and Warranties and really pissed some people off who thought they should be off the hook. I believe that Chuck Brazier would remember that time as he was the guy responsible for delivering the bad news to a lot of the brokers. You know me Kit, I call it like I see it and I don't make up stories like this. Why the hell would I? So you can tell, whoever that "no balls" ghost writer is to call me directly so I can set him straight. If he wasn't so worried about what's gonna happen to other brokers maybe he wouldn't have so much gray hair. I guess your ghost writer is just upset with me because I actually enjoyed doing business with my funding sources. Thank God, cooler heads prevailed and the NAELB turned out to be a great resource for brokers, especially some of the newer and less experienced ones for whom the writer seems to have tremendous contempt. One more comment. I finally got a copy of the "earth shattering" memo sent out by Colonial re: cutting commissions back, etc. I had gotten several calls from people who were concerned about this move by GE Colonial so I was interested. Upon receiving the memo and reading it I immediately called my old friend Curt Lysne there and asked him for the names of all the brokers who were complaining about the commission cut back. Curt, thinking this was a strange request, asked me why I would want that info (I was kidding of course) I told him that I wanted to call each of those people and see if anyone could tell me how it was that they could close a deal with 25 points in it. Although I feel I have accomplished a lot in this industry that is one claim I have never been able to make. Hell, I go to church and light a candle when we get enough of a spread to get 110% of equipment cost. I just wanted to shake the hand of one of these Super Heroes and possibly, for just a moment, live vicariously through them. Wow, Talk about your Top Guns. Shame on GE Colonial for limiting those poor guys to a mere 20% commission. I can see that there will be a lot of people in the leasing business who will go hungry in the coming months because of the avarice and greed of one of the best third party funding sources in the business. This business is going to get really tough if the funding sources actually decide that they might want to make as much money as some of the brokers. As far as putting an end to the "Superbroker" business I don't think GE Colonial would have any problem doing this type of business if the Superbrokers took responsibility for their sources. One of the SEC seminars is about Shared Risk/Shared Rewards. In my opinion GE Colonial handled this one wrong. They should have proposed holding back a reserve account on re-brokered business that was commensurate with the level of expected bad debt. The Superbrokers would have dropped them like a hot potato and they wouldn't have to take any flak about making a prudent business decision. Looking forward to seeing you at the SEC in San Fran. Thanks for your help in putting the program together. Bob Rodi ( Editor's Note: One of the people Bob names above is the annoymous person Bob calls "No Balls." I am sworn to secrecy on this, and if I were to let his name be known, no one would trust me "not to quote them." In addition, perhaps there were several founding meetings. There was with UAEL, as Russ Rickards, before he retired from Bank of the West, gave me a copy of the original minutes of the original meeting to form UAEL. People who have claimed to be at that meeting were not noted in attendance. Bob Rodi is an outstanding individual, a person after my own heart, who is not afraid to speak out and call it as it is. My hat is off to you, Bob. www.leasingnews.org
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