We've got to tell the story and small companies are great at telling it. I urge you to get involved.

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Dwight Dumler addressing RentDirect members.

"This is not a one-man job. This is an industry job. We are successful when small business owners get involved because legislators listen to the people who create jobs in their local districts," stated Dumler.

Dumler asked the dealers in attendance to become educated on the legislative process to print off and familiarize themselves with the two bills that are seeking sponsorship in the House and Senate - The Congressional bill is H.R. 1767 and the Senate bill is S.1012.

"Go to thomas.gov and see if your Congressman and if your Senator are co-sponsors of these bills. We've got to tell the story and small companies are great at telling it. I urge you to get involved."

Dumler says if a dealer discovers their local legislators are not on the bill, then they need to contact that lawmaker and ask for their support. Better yet, dealers can participate in person during the Nationwide Rental Coalition's legislative conference to be held April 21 – 23, 2009 in Washington.

RentDirect's Executive Director James MacAlpine stated that the NRC conference was intentionally scheduled at the same time as the APRO Legislative Conference in order to allow Rent-A-Center's government affairs team to coordinate all of the meetings.

"Rent-A-Center has been the chief architect of 99% of the legislative activity within the last ten years," stated MacAlpine. "The most united, least confusing thing is to have the legislative conferences together. APRO will be at one hotel and NRC will be at the Ritz-Carlton, but we're all going to walk the halls together as the RTO industry."