RTOHQ: The Magazine, Spring 2018

42 RTOHQ The Magazine Vincent Ficarrotta is a native Tampanian a fairly rare find in Floridas second largest metropolitan area a k a The Big Guava google it Widowed when Vince was very young his mother Jennie Rose raised him and his older sister on her own with some support from extended family Vince was a natural athlete who spent his teen years balancing school baseball and work with his grandfather at the familys machine shop In 1979 he graduated high school and began studies at Hillsborough Community College on a baseball scholarship but when his mother died of cancer during his sophomore year Vince returned home to help full time with the family business I realized immediately it wasnt going to be my cup of tea Ficarrotta remembers So I began delivering washing machines for Champion TV Appliance in Clearwater part of Larry Suttons franchise at the time I did pretty well and was promoted to account manager Then one day Larry and I were talking and I just had to ask I said My family mostly owned their own businesses and I was in the National Honor Society in school and I was a three year letterman in baseball and Ive got a good outlook on life Is this like in Russia where youve got two separate classes and if youre in the lower one youll never be in the upper one youll always be a worker bee What do I need to do to someday be an owner like you Well he looked at me like who is this kid continues Ficarrotta And he said If you can be a store manager first that would be a first step And I said So what do I need to do to be a store manager And he answered Go find a location for our second Tampa store and Ill consider it So thats just what I did Ficarrotta became the store manager of Champions fifth location then managed the franchises larger Tampa location Ficarrotta made the store number one among all Champion locations which totaled over 100 stores nationwide But Ficarrotta was still young and feeling restless he left rent to own to become an insurance agent at New York Life A few years later with the birth of his second child looming Ficarrotta felt the financial feast and famine of the insurance world wasnt secure enough to support his growing family So he sought a steadier source of income in rent to own I returned to Champion as a home office employee and I floated around from store to store and did some multi unit management Ficarrotta recalls But the industry began to experience a period of mergers and acquisitions and Champion was bought by Action TV Home Choice Larry became Vice President of the Southeast region and I was his Real Estate Director Our job was to acquire and open as many stores as possible as fast as possible and it was exciting work right up till we merged with another major RTO player That companys paper assets and actual assets didnt match up and the deal left a mess to be cleaned up Additionally Sutton didnt like the way he was being mandated to manage so he seized the opportunity to move on Ficarrotta was offered the option of staying or going he chose to stay but it meant being placed as the store manager of the same Tampa location he had found and run more than a decade earlier Disheartened by this déjà vu Ficarrotta went to work for RES Accessories a longtime RTO supplier As the companys operations manager Ficarrotta built up the business client base and sales volume while Sutton moved into tires and wheels by founding what was then known as Rent n Roll Is this like in Russia where youve got two separate classes and if youre in the lower one youll never be in the upper one youll always be a worker bee What do I need to do to someday be an owner like you Well he looked at me like who is this kid his is a special opportunity in my life that I treasure dearly Ficarrotta notes The mission that we practice at RNR about changing lives is no more evident than in my own life which has been changed immeasurably for the better thanks to this company and the many great men and women Ive gotten to know and help