From Compulsive Gambler to a $465 Million Exit

Rich Galgano1:50

Yeah. And I always remember, you know, growing up there was always financial uh tension in the house. With five kids, we just never had,

Rich Galgano2:18

Yeah.

Rich Galgano2:24

100%. Yeah.

Rich Galgano2:47

And growing up the way my kids did, even forget, you know, how they grew up, but the fact of what they had.

I mean, we grew up, we had to make our own fun. We would get up, you'd be in the field, you'd you'd be at the ball field biking with the the the bat handle through the through the handlebars, the glove on the end of the bat, the thermos in the back of the of the bike, and you're pedaling and you're pedaling, and you you be out till the street lights went down. Today, the kids are all in their homes either playing video games with their buddies across town, and it's it's not the same.

I mean, we live we listen, we grew up in the heyday. We grew up in the heyday and I wish it would come back because kids don't know what they missed.

Rich Galgano4:04

Oh, for sure. Uh, in grammar school, we had this green box. It was the electric box, right? And when you wanted to go, you would tell the kid, "Meet me at the green box after school." And there'd be 30 kids. They form that circle and the two kids would be in it. You'd scrum around, make the kid cry, "Uncle," and it would be over and that was it.

Rich Galgano4:28

Um, I was I was an okay athlete. Probably thought I was better than I really was. Uh, played baseball, wrestled, but I learned a valuable lesson in high school. Okay. Uh, I had a really bad junior year in baseball. horrible, right? So, I was determined to come back my senior year and have a great year. So, I just said, I'm not going to wrestle my senior year in the winter cuz wrestling is a winter sport. Chicago, I'm going to focus on baseball. I was going to the batting uh cl, you know, batting cages every night,

Rich Galgano5:03

And outworked everybody in the like what you'd call like spring training, right?

Well, I ended up getting cut from the team. Didn't make

Your senior year. my senior year. It was a for everyone a foregone conclu conclusion I was going to make the team. I had a great camp. It was incredible. But the coach didn't like me for whatever reason. His team he does what he he can do what he wants in example of you. Same thing happened to me my junior year in college playing hockey and exact thing

And but here's what I learned. I learned when your fate can be decided by another individual you have no control. Yeah. The only way for you to control your own destiny is for you the one for for you to be the one that says yes or no.

Rich Galgano5:46

If you work for someone, you play for someone, they they hold all the cards and you hold none. That's right. And that was a valuable lesson. And that's sort of when this whole the whole time my my uncle he was starting his own business. And this is where I learned about being entrepreneur. It was my uncle Joe. And he'd be be like cuz there was never talk of entrepreneurship in our home,

Rich Galgano6:10

My parents just didn't they didn't have the tools. They didn't have they had no mentors. They were just hardworking people, right?

Rich Galgano6:16

And but my uncle would say, "Richard, be an entrepreneur. Richard, be an entrepreneur. Be an entrepreneur." And that always stuck with me, you know, probably about the age of 15, 14, 15, I started hearing that. And then I can correlate and tie th those two events together, you know, getting cut from that baseball team, which I so so desperately wanted to make. and and redeem for the horrible junior year I had.

And then also pairing that to when you're an entrepreneur, you don't have to worry about getting cut. You just have to worry about making it. You make it on your own merits.

Rich Galgano6:47

Your customers are your boss essentially, but you treat your customers well and you're going to be fine.

Rich Galgano6:58

I also always worked in high school. I always had a job. I started working as a young kid, right?

Rich Galgano7:22

Yeah.

And it's where I met my wife today. It's, you know, obviously the greatest thing that ever happened to me.

Rich Galgano7:55

Give me a break." But that's where I first learned how to public speak. So, that was a great that was like my first job. And I worked at Rosati's Pizza, you know, I cut onions for the pizza. I'd come home, my hands would smell like onions, but I always had money, right? Cuz I worked all I was always a saver, too.

So when I would play these poker games, I got delusional because alls I would do was bluff my buddies out,

Right? Cuz I had more money than them. So in high school, when you have more money, some guy's not going to throw $4 in hoping to catch a card on the river, right? So now I had this delusion I'm good at poker. Yeah.

Because I'm beating beating my buddies. Taking my buddies for 20 30 bucks on a Friday night.

And then I went to college. Started drinking more.

Rich Galgano8:39

And um I started I was dating my wife at the po my now wife at the time, Wendy. But I was doing a lot of drinking and gambling and fighting

Rich Galgano8:53

At that time. It was mostly poker and dice.

Rich Galgano9:03

Yeah. Shooting dice.

Yeah. No, no sports betting at this point. Didn't have a bookie.

Rich Galgano9:07

But it was always poker.

And the first year of school I actually made money. I mean, I made enough to basically pay my tuition. Yeah. Gambling, right? You could find a poker game every day in college. So, did that. And then my sophomore year, first semester, I was gambling every day in college. When you started, when you were in your sophomore year, did you did you know in your heart like, dude, this [ __ ] ends badly? When I talk to people like when my kids will talk, you know, because of all the online betting and [ __ ] they'll be like, "Oh, dad, my friends and his dad, they made a bunch of bets on soccer games." Like, I haven't bet on everything.

Rich Galgano10:17

Yes.

Fortunately, I was playing in poker games. poker and I was playing against college kids who weren't as smart as MGM and DraftKings and FanDuel, right? So, I was able to I wasn't losing, I was winning. If I was losing, I wasn't losing much. If I was winning, I could win a few hundred a day. I mean, it was a lot of money in 1987 888.

Rich Galgano10:41

No, not at this point. It wasn't. I loved it. I I loved [ __ ] poker. But uh one night I was out drinking with my buddies and we were at a a party and this is like the movie The Outsiders. It's raining out. Well, it wasn't raining yet. We're out at a porch and I said something to a female and next thing I know I get punched in the face feel my mouth. I fall off this these it's an old house. It's got a front porch.

I fall off the porch and I'm laying on the ground and all of a sudden like in in the lights I see like a silhouette of a body coming down. It was like a WWE jump. Guy snap land on my leg. Snap my fibula.

Rich Galgano11:18

So my leg's broken. I'm bleeding. My buddies see this. All hell breaks loose. Then it starts raining. This is like the movie The Freaking Outsider. It's raining.

Don't ask me how. I'm sure it was adrenaline. I get up. I start hitting guys.

Rich Galgano11:31

And um make a long story short, legs broken. My buddy drives me to the hospital and uh I'm drunker than [ __ ] So I'm not feeling much pain.

Yeah. And it gets me home early in the morning. It's a 100 mile drive. Gets me home early in the morning. My father's [ __ ] I rateate. Yeah.

What's going on? What's going on? This is [ __ ] You know, he's gets the normal police department involved. We're going to press charges. You got to find out who did this. This going on for days. My father's incredulous. Well, then one day I'm home. My legs broke. I'm not going back to school yet. And the phone rings. It's a normal police department. And I hear my father said, "What do you mean I don't want to press charges?" "Of course we want to press charges." And I hear my father say, "Okay, no, we're not going to press charges." So he hangs up the phone.

I said, "Dad, what's going on?" He said, "Well, that kid that broke your leg, his father is an alleged mobster out of Melrose Park, and we are not pressing any charges."

Rich Galgano12:35

Yeah. And then my father's like, "And you're getting the hell out of that school." So, he made me drop out. And then I went to a small community college where I spent the next two years because I graduated early. And then I got more serious with my my now wife. And uh didn't gamble at all for like two years. Occasionally, I would play poker, but nothing. Graduated college and got a job.

And me and my Wendy at the time, we were we were engaged to be married. Well, she felt like she was too young. She called off the wedding. So, her and I essentially ended our relationship. My grandmother died. I'm working. I'm making a little bit of money and I'm bored. And I start going to the riverboat casinos. This is when the gambling gets out of hand.

Rich Galgano15:04

You can't consistently win.

Rich Galgano15:06

But the problem is you can win.

Rich Galgano15:09

So, what's the what's the what's the worst day for a compulsive gambler? The day he wins.

Rich Galgano15:14

Right.

Rich Galgano15:16

Bingo. So, I won early. Right. I was winning. Wasn't a lot. Well, it was a lot for me at the time. relatively now it wasn't but thousand dollars here.

Rich Galgano15:26

Blackjack.

And I never played blackjack before. I learned how to play blackjack. And I was winning.

Rich Galgano15:32

And I would take the cash home and I would take white envelopes and I would just put $500 and I would have envelopes stuffed all over my apartment everywhere. I got in a little bit into stocks. I didn't even know what a call option was, but guy that worked for me, he's he's got a buddy that just got out of college and he sold me on these options. So, hey, you can buy his stock. we can sell the call option, you know, and you can get income.

You know, we can buy $1,500 worth of stock and you can get $200 of income. I didn't know anything about getting called away or puts. So, now I'm gambling in that essence as well. But initially, I would

Rich Galgano16:07

[ __ ] yeah, I would have.

Rich Galgano16:13

Yeah.

Vegas trips. Then I started getting in poker, like high stake poker games

And um it just was consuming and I'm working. I'm a sales guy selling wire cable. That's how I got in the wire and cable business.

Rich Galgano16:32

I was killing it.

Rich Galgano16:35

Yeah. Yeah. So I had like uh two lives. Work rich, you know. I'd be in the office at 5:00 in the morning. I'd leave at 7:00 or 8 at night and then the gambler

Rich Galgano16:48

I was selling wire and cable which is what do you mean wire and cable like physical wire?

So it's a great story how I got in this business. So while I was still in school I was actually studying physical education.

Rich Galgano16:59

I thought I wanted to be an athletic trainer.

Rich Galgano17:02

And so I got a job at a like a private club which is nothing more than a an executive club that had a gym. Right.

Yeah. And I started talking to this guy, Tom Katsulus. And Tom was very flamboyant. He looked like James Khan, tan, good-looking guy, right? He had always velour sweatuits on with white white [ __ ] tea and these gold chains dripping off, gold rings and watches. And he would get on his Schwin a bike. Yeah,

That's all he did. A Schwin aired bike and a stairmaster. I don't know who who works out today in a velour sweatuit, right?

Rich Galgano17:38

With gold chains on. But he liked me. We would talk. And at that point, I also I was selling shoes for Foot Locker. Okay. In college. Yeah. That's where I really learned how to sell.

And uh I was always on the I would work 20 hours a week and I would be on the leaderboard for top sales guys at Foot Locker. Now I'm competing I'm I'm working in the suburbs. I'm competing with guys that are working in Chicago. This is the year of the Air Jordans. Yeah.

Right. Where I mean

Rich Galgano18:07

Shoes were a big deal. Yeah, I big big deal.

Rich Galgano18:13

Yeah.

Rich Galgano18:17

So I learned how to pedal there. So I knew I could be a good sales guy. And I remember going to Tom one day. I said, "You need to hire me as a sales guy." He told me about this wire company and everyone that works there is young. They're great looking. You know, they're all making a lot of money. And I I didn't have a job. This is before I was getting ready to graduate. And I just went up to him. I said, "Listen, you're going to hire me.

I'll be the best sales guy you ever had.

Rich Galgano18:38

Make a long story short,

He says, "Well, you got to go talk to this guy, my partner, another guy."

And uh so I go mention, "Hey, Tom wants me to talk to you." Guy says, "Not now, kid. I'm working out. Like, don't bother me.

This guy might have been, you know, eight or 10 years older than me. I would never have treated anybody like that."

Rich Galgano19:00

But to his credit, on his way out, he handed me a sheet of paper and he said, "Call this name on this paper. Call him." His name was Gary Keller. So I called Gary. Gary says, "Sure, let's meet. Let's have lunch." Well, I end up having lunch. He says, "Let's have lunch at the club, the club that I work." Yeah.

So I I also valet cars there. And they had a dining room. So now all of a sudden I got I get dressed. Now I'm having lunch with who I perceive as a big shot, right? Cuz I'm a kid.

Perceive is a big shot in the dining room with people I work with. And they're like, they're like, "Are we supposed to call you Mr. Galgano. What?

This is so comical.

Rich Galgano19:39

But anyway, Gary pulls up in a Saab 900 turbo.

Rich Galgano19:43

Remember Saabs?

Rich Galgano19:45

So, I'm thinking, well, Tom ain't bullshitting me. If he's got a Saab, he's got to have money.

Rich Galgano19:49

Right. I mean, we never If there was a Saab in the neighborhood I grew up with, I mean, forget about it, right?

Rich Galgano20:07

Yeah. I remember when Mr. Grandal got a 1976 Corvette Stingray. That was like the car of the neighborhood, right?

I meet Gary for lunch and I get a job at this wire wire company, right? And

When wire gets in your blood, you you it's an industry you don't get out of this industry. So, at first I was doing something called a lot of brokering.

Okay. So people would call up and say, "Hey, I need this or I need that."

Rich Galgano20:34

Copper plastic insulated copper

Rich Galgano20:44

Of the Yeah. This description. Here's my application. Here's what I'm doing." And there's all kinds of different wire, by the way.

Rich Galgano20:49

Low voltage wire, high voltage wire,

Mining wire, portable core. I mean, it's all kinds of all kinds of [ __ ] was every day was an adventure. It was freaking awesome.

Rich Galgano21:05

No, there are so many different kinds of wire. It would blow your mind.

Rich Galgano21:09

Right. So part of what made you good was your ability to source.

Okay.

So someone would call and say, "Hey, I'm looking for,

You know, some DLO that's diesel locomotive cable." Well, if you knew who had diesel locomotive cable in stock, you know, you could find it. You buy it for a buck, you turn around, you sell for 280 a foot. Yeah.

Rich Galgano21:28

Huge money.

Huge. Right. Huge. I was 21 20 21 years old at the time. And I became a very good sales guy, right? And I'm learning my craft. And I was just saying this. I'm like, why doesn't why doesn't [ __ ] Young Rich just sell this before the internet, but just set up a [ __ ] online clearing house. Put in whatever you want. We'll match you with the buyer.

Rich Galgano21:48

Yeah. I mean,

Instead of 110.

Yeah. I mean, we're working on a IBM AS400, green screen, dump terminals, right?

Rich Galgano22:30

Oh god. I mean, if you had if you had and you kept if you were if you were able to keep the c customer comfortable. So like it was unheard of. This is 1991, okay?

And I want a second phone line cuz I only have one phone. Okay. I said, I want a second phone line. Like what do you want a second phone line for? I said, "I need a second phone." And you know, they didn't have these big elaborate phone systems back then. You had to get a hardwire landline in. So, they get me a second phone. Why do I want a second phone? Because I want one phone here to keep the customer on the line, one phone here where I can call the other supplier.

Because the minute you hang up on a customer, then they have the ability to pick up their phone and call someone else.

Rich Galgano23:09

Right. Or I would wing [ __ ] I would say, "Oh, like I would use pattern recognition and I would use foundational knowledge and I would say, okay, this guy wants an 18 gauge 8 conductor. Well, I know copper's 240 a pound. There's eight conductors,000 ft. There's x amount of pounds in the copper. There's that. I know how much plastic. Here's the price for the plastic. I'm going to add a fud fudge factor of 40%. I'm going to mark that up 40%." I would say, "Oh, Henry, I got this in stock.

I'll get this shipped out today. Your price is $299 a foot. What PO you want me to use?" Boom. Boom. Boom. Then he hangs up. I got the PO. Now I got to go [ __ ] find it.

Rich Galgano23:41

And I would find it. I was relentless. I would find it.

Rich Galgano24:02

Yeah. I mean, that was it. And the ability to keep someone on the and never let that person off the phone. You have to make them feel when you need it there by Wednesday. I will have it there Wednesday. And then if I promise somebody, you believe me, I'm on those freight companies. I mean, we did everything. We expedited freight. We found the material. We set the price.

We did it all. Right. And then that's how my career started. And then I moved into what's called low voltage.

Rich Galgano24:27

First year I started out $18,000.

Rich Galgano24:30

I was at a $28,000 base salary at the end of my first year. I got a raise at 6 months. What this company never did. They're not paying you a commission.

I wasn't on commission yet after my first year. Then I went on commission. Okay.

Rich Galgano24:42

They did make a killing on me. I made 42,000.

Rich Galgano24:45

And then I made like 59,000 then 70. And this was my last

Rich Galgano24:52

Huge money at the time. But I should have been making 300,000.

Rich Galgano24:55

Okay.

This is going on. And I remember I have my review and it and I've been gambling the whole time.

Okay. I've been I was gambling. And when you're gambling and this company also went through a period of chapter 11. I don't know if you ever worked for a company that went bankrupt. So the two guys, okay,

Dysfunction is dysfunction. Okay.

And if you own a business and you're dysfunctional, I got news for you. Your business takes on that personality. Yes. Okay. So Tom, I wonder if I should use the names in the book. Well, his name's Tom Castellano's in the book. He's dead now, so I don't have to worry about any defamation. And by the way, everything's true. Um, that always helps the kids.

Coca they look, there was cocaine going on going on in the office. Drinking, adultery. It was so [ __ ] dysfunctional.

Rich Galgano25:45

It was. It was. Tom had an affair. I don't even know what you call it an affair, but anyways, there were photos taken.

Oh my god. So now blackmail comes in. The FBI is involved.

Rich Galgano25:56

Um, it's total freaking chaos. And again, people are screwing in the in the warehouse, in conference rooms, young kids are doing coke. I stayed away from that [ __ ] And I never fraternal. I never fratonized with anybody in the company. I was there to [ __ ] work, not party. Okay. My my my hidden life was my gambling. Well, so the business is in dysfunction. Now the business goes into chapter 11.

Rich Galgano26:26

No, they didn't manage. They had inventory. They had locations. They overexpanded.

Rich Galgano26:31

No, I was brokering, but we were also selling from inventory.

Oh, so they were also they were inventory. They carrying inventory or they would sell customers that had no ability to pay their bills.

Rich Galgano26:43

It was freaking chaos. But one of the greatest experiences in my life is working for a company that's in chapter 11 in receiverhip because you learn about debtor and possession, cash in advance. You learn the importance of turning inventory. Always sell from inventory first. Well, what happened before these guys were I mean no there was no management. If you own something in stock for let's say 50ent

Rich Galgano27:07

Why would you sell the thing for 50 cents?

Rich Galgano27:13

Doing whatever they wanted. So now you're you never sell that inventory. You never turn it into cash. So it sits on your balance sheet, right? Is that inventory?

Rich Galgano27:21

Oh, dopes. 100% dopes. So then we're in chapter 11 and uh Tom's devastated. The bank's pissed. Tom ends up getting basically last minute run out of the company. This guy Matt Coleman comes in, buys the company out of basically not out of bankruptcy, but buys the company in bankruptcy.

Rich Galgano27:42

Tom's on it first, but then they they they bring another guy in. This guy uh Jim Delipa, he's also dead. And Jim was basically the bank said, "You bring this guy and he's a turnaround guy, fix it guy."

Okay. Now I'm 22 at the time.

Almost everybody gets whacked.

Rich Galgano27:59

Okay. They keep me. I'm a hustler. I'm a worker. I'm a producer.

And I literally become like the de facto runner of this company at the age of 22.

Rich Galgano28:09

Uh I understood the you know everything. Now there were some great people there but I was like the the soul. I was in at 5 in the morning out at 8 at night. And then Deleripa, I would call it the sessions with Jim. Jim was a functioning alcoholic. So come 7:00, HE'D BE RICHIE, GET IN MY OFFICE. And then he have his bourbon on ice or whatever, whatever the brown drink he was drinking on ice. And he never offered me. I would never took it anyways.

And then Jim would start to drink and he would say, "Let me show you this." And he would show me the income statements. He show me the balance sheet. Here's what we need to do. Here's what I'm gonna do. So, I got a first class education from a functioning who he was a brilliant guy. Yeah.

Rich Galgano28:57

On how to look at an income statement, how to read a balance sheet, what's important on a balance sheet, what is shareholder equity, what is all these things. And every night he would call me in and then we would look, here's how much inventory we do today, here's how much cash we collected today. And then from there, we would go to a place called Carlos Murphy's afterwards and he would drink more. And then he would start yapping. Yeah. Right. They would do the drunk talk and tell me about who he liked, who he didn't like, why the why he's turning this business around, why he's the guy, you know,

And then and then I would talk to him about my pay and I would say, you know, Jim, I'm underpaid. He goes, you're making twice your age. You ever hear this term, Ken? Twice your age.

Rich Galgano29:43

Yeah. Yeah. So if I bring in a million dollars in revenue, I could go sell off a [ __ ] rumple stillkin wire tomorrow. Yeah. So he's rich and you're making twice your age. So this goes on and fine, whatever. So then I'm having this is my last review and now I'm well during this time I'm still gambling and then I go on a [ __ ] bender. I go on a a three-day bender, right?

Rich Galgano30:12

No drinking. I was never really a big drinker at all.

Rich Galgano30:15

No, never drugs. A little bit of weed early in high school, but nothing professional. It was all It was gambling. I was gambling. Prior to prior to that 3-day vendor, I'd been to Vegas. I I I had a a stint playing craps where I had 10 years of income on the table.

Rich Galgano30:31

10 [ __ ] years in chips.

Rich Galgano30:35

AND LOST IT ALL. OH,

I remember my good buddy Greg Clayson, who's a Chicago copper. He um it was the first time anybody ever told me. He said, "You're sick."

Rich Galgano30:46

He left. He couldn't take it. I mean, I was up big. He's like, "Let's go to dinner." I said, "No, I'm not leaving. It's a heater."

And he said, "You're sick." And we there were no cell We had no cell phones back then. I don't even know how he found me. He found me the next morning in the lobby.

I had no money. My credit cards were maxed out. He had to buy me, he didn't have to, he was kind enough to bought me a TCBY frozen yogurt at the airport and he gave me money to get my car out of the parking lot at O'Hare airport on the way home. [ __ ] And I'm

Rich Galgano31:19

Never again. Never again. Never again. I get in the car. I'm driving home. I'm like punching the steering wheel. I'm like banging my head. Why? You're never doing this again. You're never doing this again. You're never doing this again. I walk in my apartment. I find an envelope with $500 cash, get in a car, I drove to the Riverboat Casino in Aurora, Illinois, and I sit down right next to a guy by the name of Jeremy Ronic who played

Hockey for the Chicago Blackhawks. He was on third base. I sat to his um his left. We [ __ ] killed it that night. And I remember I was such a dick.

We were on We were having We have a great time. We're winning. I had forgotten about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that I lost. you know, the night before.

Rich Galgano32:05

And he turns to me and he says to go to shake my hand, he goes, "I'm Jeremy Ronic." And I said to him, "I know who the [ __ ] you are. I'm here to play [ __ ] cards, not to chitchat."

Rich Galgano32:17

No. I think he was a little taken aback, you know? And I said it sort of snide, but sort of. I said like an [ __ ]

And I I won like maybe 8 10,000 that night. Drove home. I said, "I'm I'm back."

Oh my god. I'm back. But that night, the dream started. I started dreaming cards. And I couldn't stop dreaming cards. Damn. Poker hands, blackjack hands. I had to take um again, not a big drinker, so I was doing cough syrup to fall asleep at night.

Oh my god. Popping Tums during the day. So then I go on this three-day bender.

And it's full it's football.

Rich Galgano32:59

No. No. Vegas wasn't the bender. Now I got a bookie and my number was 601. That was my alter ego. That's like being a superhero. 601. No name. 601.

So it's Friday night college football and I go I used to go to this bar and the bar would save this TV right up the front for me. They had one of those big giant 42 inch count. You know those remember those big TVs like those big square couch counts? I don't even know what size they were but they were that deep. If they were square 4 by3's, I get [ __ ] crushed. Friday night, I lose every [ __ ] game. I wake up Saturday, go to the same bar, I lose every [ __ ] game.

I mean, I lose games you shouldn't have lost, right? Get up Sunday, NFL. I don't go to the restaurant. I'm sitting in a I'm renting a I'm literally renting a bedroom

In a house from one of my sister's friends. Oh my god. because I I had to sell my condo to pay pay my other gambling debts off. Jesus. Yeah, this is And I'm I'm 23 years old. I'm [ __ ] 23 and Sunday it's my nephew's birthday and there's supposed to be a big party for my nephew and I'm supposed to go there after the noon games.

Rich Galgano34:18

And I I knew by 2:00 I was done. I was I'd lost every game

Rich Galgano34:26

Three days. Now you're talking Fridays. Friday night, Saturday, Sunday. I wasn't going to go to my sister's house for my nephew's birthday. And by the grace of God, I picked up the phone and I called 1-800-GAMBLER. Really?

Yeah. What happens when you call that number? There's a guy on the phone, an angel, who says, "You're not alone. Please go to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting." Gamblers Anonymous. Okay. So, I called over my sister's house. I said, "Listen, I I I'm can't come to the party. I'm not feeling well." At probably 5:00, I got in the car and I drove to Lutheran General Hospital in Niles, which is about 30 miles from my house.

I remember sitting in the parking lot and my hands are just gripping the wheel like, "What am I doing here? You're not sick." Oh, you are sick. I'm not sick. And I know this feeling very well. I got out of the car and I walked into you, you walk into the hospital and you're like, where's where's the gamblers anonymous meeting, right? Well, you know, people are find you there and there's an old guy outside the room. And to me, old is like 50, right?

And he goes, "What are you looking for?" I said, "I'm looking for the Gamblers Anonymous room." You remember they didn't see young kids like like me back there. They just didn't see them. And guy takes out a little yellow book with the 20 questions, you know, have you ever lost time to work to gambling? You have all the questions. And I answered at that point yes to 14 out of the 20. I later did I think 18 of the 20 was my was my number after being truthful.

Rich Galgano37:00

Yeah. 100%. That was it. God I mean that Sunday before that meeting that was the first time I didn't pray for anything other than a win. I used to when I prayed to God when I was gambling only for a win. Now, I was I was praying for salvation. I was praying to make this stop, take this burden from me.

Rich Galgano37:21

I like to use the word I looked for the similarities, not the differences.

Rich Galgano37:25

Right. Those old bastards became some of my best friends.

Rich Galgano37:28

You know, now here I am at 23. I It was a month away from turning 20, 24. And the friends that I had that weren't gamblers, they couldn't understand. Why are you hanging out with these old guys? You know, what are you doing?

They became like my family. My mother couldn't understand. My father didn't understand. Nobody could understand. There was no addiction or no, you know, my mother's father was probably a degenerate compulsive gambler, but it wasn't prevalent. There was no um there was no enabling enablement in our home.

Wasn't a home. It wasn't a dysfunctional home from gambling. There might have been some other dysfunction or drugs or alcohol. None of that. So, they just there was Why can't you just stop? Why do you have to go to these meetings? Right. I don't know if you ever heard that. Why can't you just stop, Ken?

Well, I can't stop because I [ __ ] can't stop. Yeah.

And if this is making me stop, why do you care that I'm going to these meetings? That's right.

Rich Galgano38:26

I always say I'm a grateful not grateful degenerate gambler because I would not be where I am today unless I lived those three years and went to that program. I lived more in those three years than I lived any time after that in the and I've lived a pretty damn good life and I've done some unbel unbelievable things with unbelievable people. But that three-year condensed [ __ ] chaos, self-destruction, no self-improvement is probably the most important period of my life.

Yeah.

And that's why I wrote my book.

Yeah. for my grandkids, you know, so they know that what their, you know, what was going on in their in their grandpa's head.

Yeah.

You know, my kids, I don't even know my kids have read that book and they're grown.

Rich Galgano39:18

No. I'm going on 33 years.

Rich Galgano39:21

Yeah.

Rich Galgano39:37

For sure. 100%. It's an insidious progressive freaking disease.

And it's a selfish the program. Recovery is selfish, dude. I think you know this, right?

You know, I always say if someone went bad gambling, better them than me. Um

I was very selfish in my recovery. And why I cared about other people, I cared about myself a lot more. M

You know I always say you keep your side of the street clean and don't worry about somebody's else. You keep yours clean, they'll keep theirs clean

Cuz too many people and I don't know if you saw it in in when you went to meetings or go to meet so many people they can't look honestly at themselves.

That's right. And they got to look outward cuz they don't want to look inward. And when they project something they they're really projecting themselves on you. They're never in recovery. They might just be abstinent for a temporary short time. They're not in recovery.

Sober drunks. Sober drunks.

Rich Galgano40:34

She's out having a great time, living her life, dating other guys. Um,

Rich Galgano40:39

Uh, we might talk once a year at our birthdays or whatever. Uh, when my grandmother died, she came to my grandmother's wake and

Rich Galgano40:50

Yep.

Rich Galgano40:53

Well, then all of a sudden, guess what? You start seeing things with clarity. Yeah.

You realize you're working for dopes.

You realize I can do this myself.

I'm like, if these guys can make money, I'm just as smart as them. I can do this. So, it comes to a head. So, I'm a year clean from gambling and I'm in this I'm in this uh review and I want 200,000 a year. Yeah, I'm worth it.

Well, they said, Richie, you're 20. And they used to call me Richie, right? Which infuriated. I know what you mean. It's like when someone calls me by my last name who doesn't know me well enough, I'm like that's way too familiar for me. I don't know. I always take it as it's a weird thing, but when someone who doesn't know me calls me by my last name, I'm always like, who the [ __ ] are you talking to? I don't know why it sets me off.

Rich Galgano43:25

You're going to make 90,000 this year. You know, you're 25 years old. I said, how much are you going to make?

And my manager's in a meeting. This was it. This was the greatest thing. This is the most important thing anybody ever said to me. He said, "You know what you should strive for? By the time you're 35, you should have what that guy has." And that was it. And then in my mind, here's what I said. I said, "No, [ __ ] By the time I'm 35, I'm going to have what you have.

Yeah,

Rich Galgano44:54

Just give him whatever he wants and leave him alone." I mean, it's amazing

What you were able to do.

Yeah. in self in the midst of self-destruction. What I was able to do,

It's almost like we have a special way of um separating out, you know, or our brain works in a in a way because

Most people couldn't function when they're whacked out or when they're preoccupied with their

Rich Galgano45:38

I [ __ ] did. I did. I did. And uh so he says, "You have what that guy has." I walked out and ironically it was Gary Keller. Gary, the one who I interviewed with. I said, "Gary, I'm out of here." He goes, "I'm going to go with you." So, he was my business partner. Oh, so you and Gary started.

Me and Gary, we put this business plan together. I'm not [ __ ] you. Business opened up November 1st, 1994. This is probably September 15th, my review. We planned that whole business out in 6 weeks. We did it at a Subway restaurant on napkins. We would go together at lunch. What we had, and I had an at that point, I had an Apple Macintosh black and white laptop computer. That was our computer.

We know we needed a fax machine. There was no email back then, right? We needed a fax machine. There were phone systems then. We needed a little phone system. We needed to get a phone number.

There was another guy, Perry Stein, who worked there who knew knew we were leaving. Perry was an expert at surplus inventory. Yeah. So, this is excess. So, Perry Perry Perry was miserable, too. Perry's like, "Fuck these guys, Rich." He goes, "At this time, AT&T, the company AT&T was making wire cable,

And uh Perry says, "I got a I got a a line on some AT&T material." He goes, "Why don't you guys buy it?"

Rich Galgano46:48

So, we were able to get some in good inventory for 20 cents on the dollar.

Rich Galgano46:55

This is [ __ ] beautiful, dude. So, Gary Gary's got a great buddy, John Enright. John is awesome. And he also is good friend Rich Rich and Robert Rosenberg in Chicago. There's a thing called Olsen Rug. Olsson was a famous rug rug distributor, rug company. Well, Richard and Robert's father died when they were younger, and they left Richard and Robert the business. And Rich is like, "You guys want to start a company? I'll give you free warehouse space." Okay.

So, he got free warehouse space and office space.

Well, then John had a buddy, a cousin, Tommy McDonald, who was working for NBD Bank.

Well, Tommy was getting ready to leave the bank to go get his MBA. Well, Tommy's like, "Guys, I can sign off with no authority on a $100,000 line of credit."

Rich Galgano47:36

Yeah. Holy. So Tommy gave us a $100,000 cuz we didn't have two nickels to run, right? So Tommy g got us we got a $100,000 line of credit from MBD Bank at like bank rates. So like reasonable interest. So you didn't have to take any investors. You just took on a little debt.

We took no investors bank debt.

Well then I hope people listening to this realize like if you want to [ __ ] win in this country, you can do anything that you want.

Rich Galgano48:23

First four days, we do, I don't know, $150,000 of revenue.

Rich Galgano48:30

I'm going to tell you when the point we do probably 60,000 a margin, right? 60,000 in gross profit

Rich Galgano48:37

In the first four or five days.

Rich Galgano48:40

By the first day next week, we we like we we we have to hire an assistant. We get an assistant in there. We have to get an an accountant. So Rich the who owns Olsson says, "Well, I'm going to introduce you to our accountant, Mike Plum." So Mike comes in our office. We're sitting there talking to him. All of a sudden, over the fax machine,

Rich Galgano48:59

From the old firm, we got a court date for a TTRO in two days. What's CRO?

Temporary restraining order. I'm looking at this. I'm like, [ __ ] these. This is United States of America. Tell me who I can sell. Well, sure as [ __ ] they file. They get a top law firm in in DuPage County. This is 1994.

Big law firm in DuPage County. I think this is a joke. It's a joke.

Rich Galgano49:26

Well, we Well, we don't know what to do. And there's no Google. There's no Yelp. You don't [ __ ] go to a computer and say best defense attorney. So, we rely on Gir's father's buddy lawyer and he gets us to this Simon and Cybeck. Simon and Cybec law firm. This guy Ambrose, I forgot Ambrose's first name, but it looked like the nutty professor. Well, anyways, we hire them. Well, they they're in Cook County. So, sure as [ __ ] we going for this temporary restraining uh uh uh hearing.

Sure as [ __ ] they get a TTRO on us. Oh my god. And the TTRO says, "We can't solicit any business from our former customers."

I'm like, "What the [ __ ] We got to eat."

Rich Galgano50:07

This is America.

So, I keep reading this this this legal this this this judge's order. Judge Richard Dar, right? I'm reading this order.

Rich Galgano50:18

Yeah. And Richard Der ended up becoming uh Reagan or Bush. Bush appointed him as a federal judge, I believe. I thought you were going to say he ended up becoming our CFO.

No, he became a federal judge. But anyways, I'm reading the order and it says Gary and I said, Gary, my business part. It says here, we can't solicit anybody. It doesn't [ __ ] say anything here about them soliciting us. So, I called every one of them and I said, I got bad news. I got sued. We got a temporary restraining order. Well, first off, now the customers are pissed. They're like, they're going to tell me who I can buy from. I said, well, I got news.

It says I can't solicit you. It doesn't say anything in this document about you soliciting me.

Rich Galgano50:57

I didn't but we called him the nutty professor. Okay.

So do this. All of a sudden next day phone starts ringing off the hook. People are calling other people. Our phone is ringing off the Oh, and and part of the So now you're not selling. You're just taking orders.

Well, we're supposed to We have to keep a manual too of everyone we talk to. [ __ ] that. We don't keep this manual. We don't keep any of this [ __ ] But we keep we going to court every day. Now the other side doesn't know what's going on yet.

Rich Galgano51:25

They don't know we're doing so much business. This is and but we keep going to court and losing and losing and losing. So this is

Rich Galgano51:35

Because we're trying Well, I don't know anything because I'm 25 years old. Well, 26. What do I know?

But I'm not I don't have a good feeling. I don't like him.

So there's something. We all know what discovery. I didn't know what Discovery was. But now I had to learn what Discovery was. Well, they're going to get our phone records. They're getting our bank records. They're getting every one of our sales transactions. Now I'm [ __ ] worried. Okay, cuz now you're not keeping good records. We're not Well, we got all the sales records and they're going to see everyone on that list was their customer. But you don't have any proof that they solicited you other than

Rich Galgano52:06

Well, no matter how you look at it, we took business when we shouldn't have, right, on that judge's order. We turn all the [ __ ] over to discuss. We turn it all over. Half a million dollars of [ __ ] violations. is your lawyer. Like, guys, you [ __ ] up.

Rich Galgano52:20

Horrible.

Rich Galgano52:22

This guy wanted This guy was more interested in chasing skirts at the courthouse than he was our case. Okay. Drove a red Corvette, white hair. Again, we called him the nutty professor.

Rich Galgano52:39

Every time. So then Friday night, I'm at a gambler's anonymous meeting in Schaumburg, Illinois. And I'm not talking about my gambling, my recovery. I'm talking about this freaking lawsuit.

Rich Galgano52:49

It's what you do with me, right? You talk about anything. So, anyways, this guy afterwards grabbed me. His name was Bruce. He used to call him Bruce the douche. Hated the guy. Okay. [ __ ] hated him. Hated him. He left his wife for a mail order bride. But anyways, and he was never in recovery, but he's a lawyer.

Rich Galgano53:07

Okay. He says, "Can I look at do you do you have anything you can share with me?" So, I said, "Oh, yeah." So, I go in my car truck and I got every one of these these court all the the proceeds court stuff. He looks at me goes, "You're in big trouble." I said, "What do you mean I'm in big trouble?" He goes, "You're in big trouble." And I said, "No," he's my friend, right? I'm like, "Well, can you help me?" And he said, "No, I can't help you." He goes, "One, I'm in Cook County where your where your attorney is, and two, I'm not this kind of lawyer." And I said, "What do you mean you're in Cook County?" He goes, "You're being sued into Dup Page County." I said, "You're" He said, "You're bringing lawyers in from Cook County."

Rich Galgano53:45

What are you doing? I said, "I don't know what I'm doing." I said, "Well, who do you know anybody that can help me?" He goes, he goes, "I know one guy." And he hands me a piece of paper with a phone number. Guy's name is Dan Purdum. So, I get home. I'm I'm all wor. I'm nervous, right? Of course, we have a

Rich Galgano54:01

We have a court date Tuesday. We are going to get They're going for sanctions. We're done. We're going to be bankrupted. I Who knows how much money I'm gonna have to pay him. We're gonna be screwed. This is God's intervention, guys. Dan Purdum. Now, if you had Google back in 1994, now this is 1995 because it's February. And thank God Monday was Martin Luther King Day because the courts were closed.

Rich Galgano54:25

Courts were closed. So, that means Dan Dan was going to be in the office. Now, if you had Yelp or Google in 1995, here's what you would have found out about Dan Berdam. former United States prosecutor,

Worked with Dan Webb, worked with Scott Taro, prosecuted the largest healthc care fraud case in the United States, and then went on to become a master uh criminal defense attorney. Okay. And corporate defense attorney.

Rich Galgano54:51

Back then it was 200 an hour.

You probably don't care. You probably don't. You just have to come. We don't know any. So I called Gary on and I said, "Gary, this is the guy we we got. We got to get to this guy. I said, "Ambro, we're dead. We're dead on Tuesday." By the grace of God, I pick up the phone 8 o'clock in the morning on Monday. Call the office, right? And get his secretary. Yeah, Mr. Pam's in. He can see you at 10:00. Oh, thank God. And I said, "Where are you located?" She gave me the address.

Turns out they're like 5 minutes from my apartment. Oh my god. So, it was nothing. He It was in Lyall. So, I called I called Gary. I said, "Gary, we're meeting up at 10:00." Gary lives in the city. He gets in the car and I'm waiting down in the lobby for Gary and then Gary comes walking in like this is his famous move, the hands. He keeps walking. He goes, "Richie, now he can call me Rich. Richie, this guy's a [ __ ] killer." I said, "What do you mean he's a killer?" He goes, "My father did some research on him." Oh, he's really good.

So, anyways, we get upstairs and he's like he right right away he's looking at everything. He thinks we stole He thinks we stole everything. They had affidavits like reports were missing things were miss I'm like it's all bull dam it's all [ __ ] I said I know everything it's in my head I was running that company I can you know I know this [ __ ] inside and out

And I don't think he's going to take the case I plead I said I said listen I said I have nowhere to go I said tomorrow I'm dead my life's over I said I need you to take this case

Rich Galgano56:22

Yeah well and I had no money take our business which is what I mean yeah and we were only in business at this point you know 2 and a half 3 months

Rich Galgano56:30

A little bit. Well, we you know, we're borrowing on a line of credit. Tommy's getting nervous. The bank's getting nervous cuz we're getting sued.

Rich Galgano56:41

But we paid Nutty Professor 60 70,000 for the law. We got to pay the lawyers.

Rich Galgano56:46

Oh, yeah. So, then Dan, you know, Dan is like, "Uh,

I need a $10,000 retainer." Yeah.

All right. So, we wrote him a $10,000 retainer.

He goes, "I'll be at court in the morning." Right. But anyway, so I get up and I hand him a file and he says, "What's this?" And I said, "Um, just look at the file." And it was a file with price fixing to the federal government that that other company did.

Rich Galgano57:19

It entails all the notes.

Rich Galgano57:25

Okay. So, there was a major lab uh defense lab in the Chicagoland area.

Rich Galgano57:31

And they called us up and they said, "We need some AT&T material." AT&T. There was only there's only three places you could buy AT&T or four places. Us, Annexter, Greybar, and maybe Acute at the time.

Rich Galgano57:44

Four other distributors. Okay.

We knew that. And they're like, "Listen, we want to work." They basically said, "We want to work with you. You know, can you we just need to get other bids. can you help us get, you know, tell us where to go for these other bids? Well, we told them the companies to go to, and those companies were all going to benefit from this order. So, I had all the documents with the emails back and forth, the pricing. We told them to provide the business they would get from this.

Rich Galgano58:11

Because we were going to buy material from them either for those projects or other projects

Rich Galgano58:17

Uh, yeah. Then, but they wouldn't have been able to buy the AT&T material anyways because they weren't distributors for it. How did they So then how did they Oh, you were just giving them to give a fake price on [ __ ] that they didn't even have.

Rich Galgano58:39

Well, no, you send it direct to the lab. You send it directly to

Rich Galgano58:48

The lab is going to send you the quote. Here's what you are going to price it out at. and send it back.

Rich Galgano58:53

I had everything. And then I had the

Rich Galgano58:57

Well, then he says to me, he goes, "I thought you didn't take anything." And I said, "That's not anything." I said, "That's protection."

Rich Galgano59:07

Yeah. And well, now remember, he's a former federal prosecutor. So now he's thinking, "I got to report this."

Rich Galgano59:14

Right. Cuz he knows this is a crime.

Rich Galgano59:15

So he doesn't do anything with it. So the next day we show up to court, right? And the other side, I mean, they could taste the blood in the water. Everyone is there that what? Like the president, the CEO, my old sales manager. They're [ __ ] blood. They're like sharks, blood in the water. They know this is over. 500 like we got 500, you know, 500,000 in sanctions. Well, all of a sudden, I'm at court. And prior to and the court prior to this, the judge threatened to throw me in jail for contempt of court because he ruled against us on some [ __ ] motion.

And I said, "Ken, I did like this." I said,

And the judge says, "Who did that?" And I said, "I did that, your honor." And he goes, "And who are you? Who am I? I've only been coming in this courtroom six times in the last two and a half months." I said, "I'm the defendant in the case, sir." He goes, "Well, I got a a good sense to throw you in in jail for contempt of court." I'm thinking, "Oh my god." So, did Nutty Professor, if I were Nutty Professor, I'd say, "If you [ __ ] say one more word again, I'm going to stab you in the neck."

No, Nutty Professor was out of his league. Out of his league.

Rich Galgano1:00:24

But, so we walk in and Dan's behind us. The judge. So, the judge knows that we're going to have new right before he comes in, he knows we have new representation. He hurt him.

The judge walks in the courtroom and good morning everyone. and he says, "It looks like this team is playing with a new center fielder." Little did I know, Dan and the judge were good buddies. They were baseball fanatics.

Rich Galgano1:00:51

None of the facts changing the case. No, I know. Just my freaking attorney. I know.

Looks like this team is playing with a new center fielder. Dan's like, "Your honor, Dan Purdum representing Ambrose, you're fired." Uh I I have the transcripts. They're in the book. in the book that I'm going to give you when we leave here. You're going to see the court transcripts. So then, you know, he says, "Hey, I need I need another month or whatever whatever time I need to reconvene." And then Fullerton, which is the And they think they get and they think today for the Fullerton is the is the uh the corner for the other for the plaintiffs, right?

He's like, "Well, your honor, WE HAVE ALL THESE sanctions we need to discuss all of these violations of your court order and all these things." And the judge says, and then Dan says, "Wait, wait, your honor, wait a sec. My clients never solicited anybody. They were solicited. You know, I told them when I took the case yesterday, they need to stop that. They're going to stop it." Okay? But they didn't solicit anybody. The judge basically says, "Oh, we we got we'll work that out later." You know, guys must have been seething.

They were seething out of their freaking minds. And then the judge said basically why don't you party just see if you can get this worked out. Okay, get see if you guys can work mediate this. He ends court.

So the next week we're going to start deposition. But well anyways I we leave court and I'm like what the [ __ ] just happened?

Rich Galgano1:02:14

He didn't disclose to us that he knew Judge Dera that they, you know, baseball killer. He's a freaking killer. Unbelievable litigator.

So then we, you know, we got depositions the next week. I'm with him every day.

Rich Galgano1:02:28

He He's like, I know. He goes, Richie, I know why they came after. He goes, you are smart. He goes, you know this business inside and out.

I said, I don't I said, Dan, I didn't need to steal anything. It's all in my head. I got this.

Rich Galgano1:02:44

So, they wrote all these false affidavits and one person were depositing one after the other. We're killing them. We're killing them. We're three young ladies who got pressured to write depositions. I felt bad, but I didn't. I'm like, "You come after me, I'm coming after you." Of course, you know.

So, then we get to this guy Tom Donnie, who I hated him. We called him TD. I forgot. I forgot his name in the book. I don't know if I can say real names, but anyways, TD. And whenever this guy was a clown, so whenever like he'd come around, you'd throw the the hand signal up, right? You'd mock him.

Rich Galgano1:03:15

So, anyways, we have a we have a after a heated lot of heated [ __ ] going on. my attorney him, you know that we take like a little break and we walk outside. I said, "Dan, use it. Use it."

Rich Galgano1:03:31

Tell him you don't know about the price fixing.

Yeah. Start leaking it out there. Okay. And this guy doesn't know anything about it.

But the fact that they go back and the lawyer's like, "Why are you asking about why are you asking about this situation?" Lawyer's oblivious. They never told him anything. Of course they didn't tell that federal crimes next day Mark Winkl comes in and Mark ended up coming to work for us at Windy City Wire.

Rich Galgano1:03:56

Winkle was the director of purchasing wrote an affidavit.

Rich Galgano1:04:01

No. Oh no. He was instructed. Okay.

Rich Galgano1:04:05

He knows the whole story inside.

Rich Galgano1:04:11

Oh, sure. They didn't care. They thought they were uh steel. They thought they were Superman. But they realize if hypothetically if we get caught, we're committing a federal crime here. This is [ __ ] big. We're robbing the government. They don't [ __ ] around. No,

Rich Galgano1:04:27

Oh, [ __ ] Well, one person would have went to jail. The guy had signed the document.

Rich Galgano1:04:32

So, we start nailing Winkle on this, right?

Rich Galgano1:04:40

Bingo, bingo, bing. It's exactly what he did. He's like, "What? Hey, what can you tell me about the purchase for so and so? It's Argon Labs. Okay. For Argon Labs. What can you tell me about that? I don't know much about it. Oh, really? You know that stuff that you ordered before you actually got the purchase order? Cuz they pre-ordered everything to have it in stock.

Oh my god, these guys are so stupid. He goes, "Oh yeah, yeah. Okay, now I remember." He goes, "No, no, no. That was the UPS project." Cuz UPS, the the shipping company did a big project very similar to the Argon project. He said, "No, that's UPS project." He goes, "Oh, really? Tell me." And then he starts going, he said, "Well, who's in charge of that?" And he goes, "Martyak." Well, he threw our good buddy Marty under the bus.

Rich Galgano1:05:23

And finally, he said it came from Jim Deleripa, who was the CFO of the company. Okay. So, he that was it right then and there. And we were supposed to depip and and the other guy the next day. Yeah. Okay. He [ __ ] said, Jim Deleripa directed me.

Fullerton has no idea what's going on. He's like, Fullerton's the other attorney, the other lawyer. And he's in there and he's like, "What the I have no idea what what's this line of questioning." I call it the B and the B. You got to You got to read the book.

Rich Galgano1:05:50

5:00 that night, you know, we call Gary. I'm like, Gary [ __ ] Purdum KILLED HIM TODAY cuz we can only have one guy in the depth. [ __ ] Oh, and by the way, in these depositions, you're going to like this. We're my jeans, my blue jeans were torn. I had a KISS concert t-shirt on. I had a baseball hat on backwards. A big dip of skull long cut. You've already been yelled at for the [ __ ] judge by contempt and you're still pressing your luck.

And I'm sitting in this dep in in Purdum's office in their conference room with these depositions with a spit tune and I told them like if I spit a certain way that's a signal that they're lying to keep pressing.

Rich Galgano1:06:28

It was It was so awesome.

Rich Galgano1:06:30

So, and then we called Gary. Gary Pam [ __ ] killed him. Winkle with sweat. You should have seen the sweat coming down his face. And literally we hung up with Gary. Fullerton called and said, "We want to settle the case." I said, he said, "My clients are not showing up for deposition tomorrow." And they just dropped it. They didn't want to show up for deposition because they would have been pressed on the price fixing. So, but they but what did they ask for to settle?

Did they want first off? They wanted like 200,000. We're like, "Fuck you."

Rich Galgano1:07:07

Yeah. So, well, we're running out of money, right?

So what? They don't I know. I know. So I made them sweat a lot and we got everything we we got everything we wanted out of the settlement and uh and the rest is history.

Rich Galgano1:07:24

Settlement was we elected we just we said we're not going to sell certain companies in Illinois, Iowa, Ohio. That's so they can say them by their mall.

Yeah. But it was they were companies we were never going to sell anyway.

We were willing to concede those. They they wanted to save a little bit of face. I wanted the lawsuit to go away. I got everything I wanted. I got I got to keep every customer that we sold. There was no one that we did business with. They didn't have to pay anything. We didn't pay nothing.

Rich Galgano1:07:52

Oh, I think probably when we were all said and done, I bet we were at 120 between the two lawyers.

Rich Galgano1:07:58

We got to keep the business

Rich Galgano1:08:02

100%. Yeah. And uh that was a defining moment for a 26 year old. Not only that, I'm I'm doing the lawsuit and we're we're running and growing a business.

Rich Galgano1:08:22

Oh, hell yes.

Rich Galgano1:08:30

Yeah. I said, "We won't do any business with anybody new."

Oh, okay. I said, "Listen, anybody we've done, it's Listen." I said, "It's already done, Dan."

Rich Galgano1:08:39

Yeah. All right. So then,

And I said, "Listen, if we're going to lose, we're going to lose big. I mean, what the hell?"

Rich Galgano1:08:49

It just explodes. So the rare error. So this will be this is the last since I sold the company 2020, but I'll be starting my 33rd consecutive year of EBIT to growth. So 33 years of never going backwards in earnings including in this company in with this company including docom bust 911 to GFC and COVID I've grown I E I E I E I E I E I E I E I E I E I E I every calendar year I've never had

Uh a quarter a quarter from one year to the previous year ever be less in uh earnings ever in 33 years.

Rich Galgano1:09:33

All right. So, in Well, early on, you're not printing money because now you have inventory,

Right? And you're paying the federal government 4045 cents of every dollar you make. We literally had to borrow money to pay our taxes, right? Cuz we had no money to start the company. So, all the profits we're using to capitalize, computer systems, everything's going back into the bank.

Rich Galgano1:09:59

No, we're not paying ourselves crazy. No, this is 1996 now.

Rich Galgano1:10:02

Uh '97 I think 97 was our first big distribution. I think we just took like a $400,000 distribution check.

Rich Galgano1:10:14

No. No. 90 90 Yeah. 97. Then me and Wendy got back together in '97. We ran each other to bar.

Rich Galgano1:10:25

I'm just teasing you, Wendy."

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and God, we were married within 5 months and then we were pregnant, you know, 2 months after our wedding.

Jeez. Yeah. And we've been married 20, it'll be 28 years next month.

Rich Galgano1:10:38

We'll be 29. We got married in 97. 1997. So, will that be 29 years?

Rich Galgano1:10:49

Yeah.

Rich Galgano1:11:29

No, we don't. You know, when we were kids, we used to drive through the neighborhood we live in now, you know? That's what I mean. So, you never look at it and go like, "Can you believe we [ __ ] did this?"

Rich Galgano1:11:39

Yeah. I mean, I don't ever I don't know if I think of things like that that way. You know, I think I'm more impressed with the five kids that she raised and

You know, our relationship

Rich Galgano1:12:07

Yeah.

Rich Galgano1:12:12

Yeah. No. No. And I will tell you, I mean, when we first got married, I, you know, I was well on my I was a multi-millionaire on paper, not not liquid.

And but we haven't changed.

Rich Galgano1:12:26

We haven't changed.

Rich Galgano1:12:29

So many people just they let [ __ ] money just destroy who they are or ruin who they are. I mean, if you saw us, you wouldn't, if you saw us on the street, you wouldn't know, you know, that we were wealthy.

Rich Galgano1:13:08

They don't go away. They don't.

Rich Galgano1:13:10

And you know, and look, I get the other side when they say, "Well, it's easier for sake cuz you have money." So listen,

Rich Galgano1:18:52

You know, and she thinks we're rich.

Rich Galgano1:19:01

Oh no.

Rich Galgano1:19:06

Sleepless nights.

Rich Galgano1:19:12

And you stayed sober.

Rich Galgano1:19:30

Yeah. Right.

Rich Galgano1:19:33

You're asking about why? Okay. So why we sell or why? Okay.

Rich Galgano1:19:40

No, we're just using that from the profits of the company. So companies

Rich Galgano1:19:47

Well, the investors happened in 2006. Okay.

Rich Galgano1:19:51

I've been in business 12 years. So, we wanted to take some chips off the table. Okay.

100% of our net worth in the business. Found the best partners in the world. The Sidler and Ali family out of California.

Rich Galgano1:20:01

Yeah. Family uh well, private equity firm, but family basically ran the firm.

Rich Galgano1:20:05

Bob Sidler, Kevin Ali. Kevin had just recently deceased. So, that was the family. They won the Padres's. They just recently divested out of the Padres's. Family owned the Dodgers.

Rich Galgano1:20:20

They're awesome

Rich Galgano1:20:23

So there were no at this time there were no private equity firms doing minority deals. Yeah. Okay. That was their niche. They're they're the best. They could see that you were just printing money like you were making money every year.

Well, yeah, we were making money, but we had made the mistake. So we went this is great learning experience. I didn't know what an LBO was, leverage buyout. So, we actually a couple years prior to that, we actually signed documents to sell our company for $22 million to a private equity firm out of Chicago. Okay? We didn't know better. But I started looking at the documents

And I start learning that

They're borrowing all this money. They're borrowing, you know, four times from the bank. Company's going to be debted. They're only going to pay us $150,000 salaries. We're each going to get 8 million now, then 4 million in a couple years. And I'm like, "Gary, this is a bad [ __ ] deal, dude.

This is We don't ever want to do this." So, we called him and I said, "This deal is off. We're not doing this.

We broke that deal.

Rich Galgano1:21:17

Yeah. Then we got like we got another offer for 28 million a few months later. Then we got another offer for 36 million.

Rich Galgano1:21:31

And they were not the right They were not the right partners. But we did want to take some chips off the table. So, we sold we got we found the Siders. Incredible. So we took remember they gave us a $43 million valuation check was like third we each got 6.5 million bucks like 13 million bucks. So we sell a third of the company and I remember so me and Gary would own 66 they would own 33. I remember we're signing all the documents at our attorney's office and we get done and uh me and Gary walked and this is and I have to sign all the documents cuz this is a funny story.

So about a year before we sold the company, Gary got busted with a marijuana plant on the in his car. He was driving his car

Rich Galgano1:22:12

He had our buddy John who introduced us to Tommy McDonald. They're out golfing and John says, "Hey Gary, I got a present for you. A marijuana plant." That was a goof. That was a goof, but he's got this marijuana plant that's this tall. Well, Gary's driving home and he's in a convertible and a cop pulls up next to him and the cop says to him, "What's in the front seat?" Gary says it's a tomato plant. The guy says, "Pull over." So he gets busted with the marijuana plant.

So anyways, well, they do background checks and and Bob Sidler has to come to town and he's like, "I have to talk to you guys about something. It's pretty serious." I'm like, "What the [ __ ] does Bob have to come?" And I'm thinking it's about my father cuz my, you know, my father and me had the same name and my parents had some money problems, right?

And I'm thinking maybe they found on a background check. Well, turns out they find the Gary, the weed thing about Gary, and they're like, "Gary, this is reputational risk. You can't you can't be on the the board, you know." So Gary's like, "What's all right? Well, I'll give Rich my board vote." So, I got two votes and uh they got one.

Rich Galgano1:23:12

No, I'm not going to vote against Gary's interest. No.

So, but the these guys are awesome. So, anyways, two years. So, we sell for 43 million. We each get $6.5 million wired to our account. Okay. Oh my god.

And remember, we want our taxes. We walk this before paying taxes, right? We got to pay taxes later. We file later. So, we go downstairs and Gary goes to an ATM machine and he puts the card in the NTM and he looks this is re recent goes recent deposits and he hands me a little receipt says 6,500,000. He says to me, "Did you ever think you'd see that much [ __ ] money in your life? I'll never forget it." And um I mean, but that was that was it.

That was antilimatic. We each went home. We didn't go out and celebrate. We didn't have dinner. We each went our separate way. And I went home like another day with five kids. in, you know, dad's home. And

Rich Galgano1:23:58

No. No. I recently bought a a Lamborghini Gallardo. So, I I went through that. I had that phase. I'm I'm I'm done with that phase. Now, I'm trying to get rid of [ __ ] Um,

Rich Galgano1:24:19

Yeah. Um then a couple years later they approached Gary about hey G because Gary wasn't working much Gary was collecting a dividend check

That Gary would you like to get out totally well you know we the value like 72 million from 43 maybe even more 78 so they bought the remaining Gary kept everything but 4%. And you had to okay that, right? Well, cuz you don't want them to be control.

Well, here's what I said. I said, I don't like this. I said, I have to have control. I I have I have to have all the votes. Okay. And I said, here's the deal. If the company ever goes backwards,

I'll give I'll relinquish I'll give you back all your voting rights.

Rich Galgano1:24:58

Well, they were great part I mean, we we have a very I'm still business partners with them today, 20 years later. They're awesome. So we rode that wave and it was a private equity fund. So then in 2012 we have to go to market. Okay. Because the funds got to end of life fund, right?

Rich Galgano1:25:16

Yeah. They got to get out, right? They got to make their

Rich Galgano1:25:20

No, I I I I wasn't even thinking about taking them out, right? So we wanted

Rich Galgano1:25:31

Yeah, they could. They could. So anyway, this is where I learned about private equity investment bankers and

How shitty most of them are.

Rich Galgano1:25:40

Had an investment banker.

Rich Galgano1:25:49

Brings this brings this sim in. It's like a real estate br of those in TV land or podcast land don't know what a SIM is. Is confidential information memo. It's basically everything about the company.

Yeah. Well, they have markets in there that we don't participate in. They had this big [ __ ] hockey stick growth curve. It was all [ __ ] And I'm furious. I'm like, I'm not I'm not [ __ ] presenting this. I said, listen, you guys are going to be on the next deal and I'm going to have to work with this buyer for the next I said, I'm I'm not doing this. So, and they come and they say, well, look, we're going to get 140 million.

And they also tell you, we're going to get 140 million for the company. Yeah, we didn't get We got to offer 110. I said, Bob, we can't sell it. We're not I'm not doing this. And Bob said, Bob Sidley, he's like, "Fine, we we we got a couple more years, right? We can keep the LPS and we're kicking off dividends. Everyone's happy." I

Rich Galgano1:26:49

But we were late. Yeah, we were late in the funds people. So, you know, I understand what you're getting where you're getting at. It's much easier just to and I was willing to roll, right? So my life wasn't going to change much. So 2014, we got to go to market again. Another banker, different banker, fired the other one, wouldn't hire him back. Same [ __ ] with the sim, not [ __ ] listening. So, and they're telling us, "We're going to get you between 185 and 165 million for the business." Okay, great.

Wonderful. But one of the things Ken I was worried about, I'm like, "Guys, we just went to market in 2012. Everyone that's going to get this book or this teaser, then the sim,

Already seen it. They've already seen it. And they're going to wonder, I didn't transact. I and I said to him, I said, "Are we damaged?" I said, "Are we damaged? Cuz if we're damaged, we can wait. We could wait another year." Yeah,

Maybe we should wait another year. So, they come back a week later. We did our research. You are not damaged.

Okay, you better be right. Better be right.

Rich Galgano1:27:46

And the number and the numbers were great. I mean, company's a great company. The

Business is g for great business. So, we only get really three serious people to come in, right? And I'm not feeling good.

Rich Galgano1:28:00

So, I go through these meetings, you know, I had to fix the sim again. Sim was all [ __ ] again. All these all all this nonsense that doesn't exist. So, we get down to a buyer and the price comes in. It was 135 million. Now I believe that the banker we hired had a quid proquo meaning because what happens is these private it was a private equity fund. These private equity funds what do they have? Not only are they buying businesses but they have businesses they have to win.

So they pro my guess is they went to and said you want to sell this business I want Rich Galgano Windy City Wire.

Rich Galgano1:28:37

You get you make sure we get this deal that it's our deal. So I think they subliminally shied these other potential buyers away. Yeah. And the range was like 115 to 135. And this is a couple days before Christmas. 2013. Yeah. 2013. Couple days before Christmas. And the number came in 135 million. The banker called me in the morning. I was at Hugo's Frog Bar in Neighborville with my with my buddies cuz we have a dad's couple days before Christmas. The dads all get together for lunch, have some pops, and

And uh guy calls me. He says, "Congratulations." I said, "Congratulations on what?" He goes, "You know, the the the great number on the sale of the company." I said, "Are you what are you [ __ ] talking about?" I said, "You told me 165 to 185. It's 135." I said, "There's nothing done here." And I said, "I have other options." Well, I didn't. I I just I said it. I don't know why I said it, but I said it. And uh I said, "Bob, I'm going to give soand so I'm going to give this guy a call, and we're going to have to have a discussion." got the the the PE firm that wanted to buy us.

But in between calls, I called Bob Sidler up.

Rich Galgano1:29:47

And I said, "Bob, I'm not I can't let this [ __ ] company go for 135 million." I said, "I have a a tough time 165. The number is probably 185."

And he goes, "Well, what are you saying?" I said, I said, "Give me give me six." I said, "Let me talk to this other guy and if I can get them up, we can talk." I said, "If they don't move," I said, "Give me give me six weeks or eight weeks, I'm going to come up with the money and I'll buy the company."

Yeah. Back. And he says, "Cuz Gary can stay in with you. So really, all you need to do is give him 45 million." Bob's like, "You want to buy the company back or you want to buy this company?" I said, "Yeah." He goes, "I'm going to buy it with you."

Bingo. That you talk about a great partner. So I pick up the phone.

He knows if you if you're willing to put that kind of

Pick up I pick up the call. I pick up the phone, call the other guy, and said he goes, "Rich, congratulations. We're looking forward. We're going to be great partners together." I said, I said, "Okay." I said, "Well, then if this is going to my equity was about 36 million." Yeah, that's how that's what I would have got on this on the sale. Okay.

I said, "Well, I'm going to roll my 36 million."

Silence. I said, "I'm not taking it down." I said, "I'm I" I said, "135 million? I'm a buyer. I'm not a seller at 135 million."

I said, "So, I'll put 36 million in." He goes, "No, you can't."

I said, "Why?" goes, "Well, we have to own a majority and we're taking, you know, four times debt and four times that check. There's room for 10 million for you." And I said, "Uh, no. I only like 12%." I said, "No, I'm rolling all my equity." I said, "Or bring your purchase price up to 185 million."

Rich Galgano1:31:19

No, it's 135 million. That's our final offer and you get 10 million. Well, he knows that that equity firm has to sell. He knows I'm a minority shareholder at the time, right? He thinks he holds all the cards. Yeah. I said, "Well, we'll let you know."

So, I called Bob up. Bob said, "Call the other guy back, the banker, the investment banker, and tell him no deal that we're you're buying the company back." And I said, "Bob," and I said to Bob Sylther. And I said, Bob's like, "We have to pay the banker." I said, "I'm not [ __ ] paying him a dime." I said, "He [ __ ] quit." Bob said, "I'll pay him. Don't worry about it."

Rich Galgano1:31:59

Yeah. Bob said we'll take care of them. So anyways, Bob and his brother Matt, they put together. Okay. So we need to we need to come up with 135 million. So I'm rolling 36 million. Gary's going to roll his 4% which was, you know, whatever.

Rich Galgano1:32:19

So we we needed 135 million. So they come with the whole thing. We put we put uh 50 like we put we wrote a $50 million equity check.

Rich Galgano1:32:29

So I put 26 million up. So that was 54. So I owned 54.

Uh they went and got another um they got another equity group, Northstar Capital out of uh Minnesota. Awesome guys.

Then Sidler, they had to call all the they had to re they had to get sign off of all the investors in the fund. Then any investor that wanted to come in could come in. So a couple of those guys came in.

Bob and Matt, they wrote a personal check. So then we raised 50 million. We levered $85 million. We leveraged six times IBITa.

Rich Galgano1:32:58

But I did it because I [ __ ] believed in the business.

Rich Galgano1:33:01

Okay. And uh we call that the great buyback.

Rich Galgano1:33:05

So over the next six years,

We we got our $50 million out. Yeah.

Plus and then we sold the company to a publicly traded company out of the United Kingdom called Diploma PLC for $465 million. Dude.

Rich Galgano1:33:26

I don't know, close to two

Rich Galgano1:33:31

Yeah. And we had some uh we had some uh depreciation recapture um and some other things. But

Rich Galgano1:33:39

And you know, at that time, I think I had like and I you got remember I'd worked 20 it was our 26 year in business.

Yeah. And I had worked 25 or 26 years and I think I had about 35 maybe I had 35 35 mil liquid at that point.

And you know I remember I sat down with my son. I said Jake I've been working 25 years. I said in one day you know I'm going to get you know five and a half times what it took me 25 years working at this job to accumulate in terms of liquidity after taxes you know.

So I could have stayed I I it was bittersweet. I wanted to sell. I didn't want him to sell and if and and my partners are like, "Look, if you want to own the whole thing, you can." But I would have had to have writ $125 million equity check.

Rich Galgano1:34:24

You know, to buy those remaining shares out. Yeah. Worked out. It worked out great. But it's hard because that I'm I'm When you start a business, that business takes on the personality of the founder.

Yeah, it does. It takes on the the cultury, morality, intensity. Uh it it takes out it's it's it's a even though it's an inabinate inanimate object. Yeah. It's got a life force. A business has a life force.

Rich Galgano1:34:52

Today when I sold it close to 300.

Rich Galgano1:35:03

So you weren't just wholesaling, you were making your own product. Yeah. I could not I I I refused to buy wire from China and I went out and I bought a manufacturing company and vertically integrated. Really?

Yeah. And it's a it's a powerhouse today. I mean, that business is probably worth

Two and a half to three times what I sold it for.

Rich Galgano1:35:28

Yeah. Company's exploded.

Rich Galgano1:35:34

Yeah.

Rich Galgano1:35:36

Yeah, I'm the CEO. I'm the CEO.

Rich Galgano1:35:39

No, no, I gave up. They they equity provided to me. Yeah.

Rich Galgano1:35:46

Yeah. But there's a CEO in London. Awesome dude. Good company. Treat the employees great. The reason why I sold to a strategic I I left about 50 million on the table when I sold. I did not I did not want to go through another sale of the company,

Rich Galgano1:36:00

I did not want the employees every five to seven years have to worry about

Rich Galgano1:36:04

Jobs private equity coming in buying it, reselling it, buying it, flipping it.

Definitely. And you know at that point is another 25 or 30 million or 20 million going to change my life? Definitely not. No, not at that kind of money.

Rich Galgano1:36:27

No, no, they're Look, they're they're conservative UK company. So saying I love when CEOs like I'll live and die with the results if I

Well, I am only the CEO of a small company within a bigger company, right? So, we were bought by a publicly traded company.

Rich Galgano1:36:42

And originally I was only going to stay on three years. Yeah, that was it. Three years and I've stayed another year and another year and another year.

So, um my guess is maybe I'll I'll stick around 5 to seven more years tops. Oh,

Then I'll be 62 63, but I have a lot of other things going. I mean, I've got I've got so many different irons in the fire with our family office. So, now what are the main things you're working on now? like what what what is the what are the biggest opportunities you're working on and what are the most exciting opportunities?

Okay. The biggest and most exciting is a company called Scylos.

Rich Galgano1:37:14

S I L O S C Y L O S. It's

Rich Galgano1:37:18

And when it goes public, everyone should buy it.

It's it's an ephemeral stateless endpoint for basically everyone's familiar with Windows today. Yeah.

Right. Windows is notorious for malware infiltration. It's notorious for blue screens. You have persistence. You have documents on that. Whether it's a laptop or a desktop, it holds your password. It holds everything. It forgets nothing. Even when you think you wipe it clean, it's not wiped clean. It has places for bad things. If you download download a bad email, it has places for those bad emails, viruses to live and then infiltrate your network or take over your your computer um like ransomware.

Ransomware, all those things. And this um I've been investor in this company since 2022.

Rich Galgano1:38:11

And uh believe it or not, uh I put a bunch of money into it. Guy embezzled.

Rich Galgano1:38:19

Between four and five million bucks. Now this. You ready for this? He gambled it away at the freaking Bellagio and the win in Vegas.

Rich Galgano1:38:29

Yeah. Yeah. I had to go to a federal lawsuit. I took the IP. I got the IP, kept all the employees. Uh we gave the employees a bunch of equity. They put money in. We got great partners out of Texas who they also got uh embezzled. Um and we're finally getting to market. So basically, it's a replacement. It's an operating system, but it's not an operating system. It holds no. It holds nothing. No persistence, nothing. If someone got to the machine, there's no place to land malware.

Got it. It retains nothing. It stores nothing. There's no documents that are saved to it. There are no images that are st saved to it. We deliver contain. So we deliver containers. So we basically applications. So Chrome, Office 365, whatever you're using today, we wrap it in an individual container. We ship that image to the device from a control plane

And then you work just as you would work in a Windows machine but everything stays out in the cloud. So you use your Google cloud or your Windows cloud. You store everything there and it replaces there's no uh virus scan on the computer. There's no edr endpoint detection and response. There's no management. There's no.

Rich Galgano1:39:45

We'll do that ourselves because it took us 5 years to develop it. Some of the smartest people in the world have worked on it. It would probably take them three years minimum $50 million. There's some IP that is getting wrapped up. And it's really it's not anyone can create a stateless substrate. Anybody can, not anybody, but people can. It's our ability to fleet manage manage it in single tenant SAS out in AWS and for you to take a fleet of 10,000 laptops or desktops from a single control plane and change and reboot the image and reboot and manage those remotely.

There is no there's no patching. There's no firmware updates. There's no management like Windows. to an an enterprise like uh JP Morgan or Bank of America, they're probably paying $80 to $100 per month per endpoint. This you get your cost down sub $10 really

And be more secure. So, we've got some and my board of directors and my advisory board unfreaking believable

Rich Galgano1:40:49

Well, we just got we're just getting to market now.

Okay. Um, we do we did a uh we did a $3 million capital raise this year that was funded by myself and some other people in the employees. It was oversold and then we're going to do another $4 million seed raise early next year

And then uh we'll probably do a series A towards the end of 2027. So, I'm looking now I'm going out now looking at some I want one good venture partner. Yeah.

I mean, it's a small check they need to write, but this is going to be a massive this is going to be the endpoint of the future. And when we're done, I'll I'll give you a little demo. I brought a laptop. It's pretty wild.

So, that is incredible. It's awesome. That's the That's That's really uh that's a life-changing business. And then we're just involved. We got, you know, eight, nine different businesses we're involved with. We own a bunch of corporate real estate. And then we, you know, we have bonds. We have we have publicly traded stocks. So, in your family office.

Yeah. It's just really my son is mostly managing all that stuff by himself. The one you met today on on a daily basis. He picks the stocks.

Yeah, he picks the stocks. I I'm not a stock picker.

Rich Galgano1:41:53

He went to Villanova. He graduated number one out of the school of business.

Rich Galgano1:41:57

Yeah, he's pretty brilliant kid.

Rich Galgano1:42:01

Yeah. And he went and worked for the Sidlers, the equity firm for a year out of school.

Rich Galgano1:42:07

Yep. Yep. He worked out in Marina del Rey, spent a year out there and then came in and

Rich Galgano1:42:12

Yeah. Helped us out. Listen, you know what he's had? He'll tell you they were shitty experiences cuz you know we bought some duds that were went bankrupt and he wor with some really bad people and he's very I think

Rich Galgano1:42:29

He has no idea how that experience is going to benefit him later on in life. It was [ __ ] and he had a [ __ ] job and he dealt with [ __ ] people

And he had a [ __ ] life for about 9 months.

Yeah. But he will benefit far down the road, further down the road as we get more more things. And look, I told him, I said, "Yeah, you put 2 million in one, you lose it. You put 2 million in another thing, you bag 18 million." Yeah.

Rich Galgano1:43:15

Yeah, we wanted to get in that space. That was a that was not a good business.

Rich Galgano1:43:52

Yeah.

Rich Galgano1:46:14

Y and I just and I knew of this person. And I didn't know him, but I knew of him.

And I I knew or I assumed when I shouldn't have assumed that he did all the diligence.

Rich Galgano1:46:26

So therefore, our diligence was light.

Rich Galgano1:46:29

Right. Now, the only thing we did is we made a loan. We didn't buy equity. We made a loan and we secured the loan.

Rich Galgano1:46:34

Right. So we were we we were first in line and and you know, it ended up being uh basically a liquidation where we we took the the all the assets of the business and got a got a few shekels back. But out of that Kabuki thing, which was just it was a a [ __ ] nightmare. Um, I'm not disclosing anything that's that's not out there in the public. Great product, though.

Rich Galgano1:47:16

And that co thing really elevated them right everyone was putting home gyms in uh so we we got in after co and we wanted to try to make it more of a like more of a brand and

Rich Galgano1:47:31

That's right

And the the buy and when you buy one it's a durable good buying another one

And um so and their overhead was just way too high and and you you could never make that business profitable. You just you just couldn't. So, tough lesson learned. But out of it, there was a a product that um it was a a body tempering stick.

Rich Galgano1:47:54

So, I'll tell you my my my whole thing with health. I've you know, I've exercised my whole life. when I was going through that, when I bought the company back in 2014, just prior to that, I had a couple incidents that I didn't even pay attention to. Basically passed out, right?

The second time I passed out, I was in the kitchen. My wife was in the kitchen with the kids and I said to my wife, "I can't see. I can't. I'm blind." And my vision came back and everything was double vision, right? She called my sister who's a doctor and my sister said he's having a stroke. Call 911. So call 911. The ambulance comes. They give me to the hospital. They're doing all these, you know, tests on me, echo cardiograms, brain tests. Well, me and my dad have the same name.

Rich Galgano1:48:43

And my father had congestive heart failure. And my sister was my dad's doctor. Well, I really didn't have a family practitioner, so we went to the hospital. You use my sister. So all of my records went to my sister's office.

Rich Galgano1:48:56

So they look at them and they think it's my father cuz we have the same name. So they file my records into my father's file.

Rich Galgano1:49:05

Well, at that point I'm not taking ownership of my health. I'm 46 years old, 44 years old. I think I'm in great shape, right? I'm in great health.

Rich Galgano1:49:14

So when I sold the company in 2014, the bank, they needed to get a $25 million life insurance policy on me. So, I have to do all these tests and they do all and they do all the record search on me, right? Well, they call they I get a phone call one day and said, "Mr. Galgano, you failed your life insurance test." And I think it was

I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Happy April Fool's Day." This is a joke. Cuz I'm like,

Rich Galgano1:49:37

And they're like, "No." And the woman on the phone said, "You have a serious heart problem." I'm

Like, "Who the [ __ ] would tell you that over the phone?"

Anyways, I find this great doctor, Dr. Marty Burke, University of Chicago. Me and my wife go down there. I I have no idea what's going on. He can tell.

Rich Galgano1:49:57

Well, I had bad They didn't need to look at my dad's record cuz I had bad records myself.

Rich Galgano1:50:03

They got my records that I went to my sisters and my sister never looked at because they subbed them in my dad. If they would have said, "These are your brother's records." She could have reviewed them. And And what what was bad on it? Like

My freaking My heart was enlarged.

Rich Galgano1:50:22

I had hypo I what's called um uh uh hypertrophic cardiammyopathy.

Rich Galgano1:50:26

Okay. So I was pounding three monster energy drinks every [ __ ] day for years in the morning.

Rich Galgano1:50:33

No doubt. No doubt it was.

Rich Galgano1:50:37

Whatever the chemicals in there, caffeine. Have no idea what

Rich Galgano1:50:41

So my heart was so my heart was only pumping at like 42% efficiency or 44. My EF. Okay. So, I'm going I'm going and then the doctor puts me on beta blockers and [ __ ] and and [ __ ] blood thinners, ACE inhibitors, all this [ __ ] And I don't want to be on any [ __ ] drugs. Okay.

So, I start taking the drugs. I lose a little bit of weight and stop drinking alcohol, stop smoking cigars. All of a sudden, my EF is my my the heart function gets from the show weren't helping.

So, make a long story short, I think I think it was trans. I'm like, "Oh, this is transit. I'm I'm a pillar of health." I go back to drinking the energy drinks. my EF fall belows 40. Now I have what's called diagnosed as [ __ ] uh congestive heart failure. Jesus Christ. And you can't get life insurance.

And the doctor wants to put they want to put defiill in me. At that point I did, you know, not I didn't need life insurance. Thank god at that point, right?

So, but anyways, make a long story short, um I stopped all the energy drinks. I dropped 60 pounds, stopped lifting heavy weights. Uh today I could say my heart is pretty much normal. Mhm.

I'm not on any no drugs. I take zero zero pharmaceuticals other than a testosterone shot every week.

But I did f my valves up. So I got three leaky valves. They're mildly leaky. They have not progressed in 14 years. I watch those. I get a I get an echo cardiogram every 6 months. Do

Rich Galgano1:52:17

No, I should do that.

Rich Galgano1:52:23

That's great. So then that's I really took ownership in my health. You know, taking ownership in your health is like in your business. You got I call it code yellow. You have to be aware what what does the doctor tell you? Why? Why do I have these symptoms? Why do I want to listen to him? Why don't I want to listen to him? But if I would listen to my doctor day one, he told me, "Stop testosterone." And I said to him, I said, "What do you know about it and heart function?" And I said, "I'll tell you what.

I'm going to come see you in 6 weeks. You do your research. When I come back, you tell me why I should stop testosterone. I'll stop. But until then, I'm not." I went back in six weeks. You know what he said? "Don't stop it."

Because I challenged him to do his research. I remember one day I'm talking to him and I said, "Doc, you I know I was on the football field at PeeWee football practice and uh we're talking and I said, "Listen," I said, "I know you have a lot of patience. I get it." I said, "But as far as I'm concerned, I'm your only patient."

That's exactly right. I am your only freaking patient. And I said, "Me and you are going to figure this [ __ ] out. This this cardiammyopathy, this congestive, whatever it is, and we're going to reverse it cuz I ain't living like this." Yeah.

Rich Galgano1:54:07

NM and Metformin.

Yes.

Rich Galgano1:54:51

Wow.

Rich Galgano1:55:34

Oh my god. They changed that much.

It was No, I when

Rich Galgano1:56:25

There's uh the rapamyasin. That's that's there's some

Rich Galgano1:56:58

I got a red light bed. Me and my wife use a red light bed. Yep.

Rich Galgano1:57:21

Yeah, that's one of the things I discovered with a congestive heart failure. Saunas improve it, you know. And then then I and I don't if you have any experience with AIB or you've ever had any B?

Rich Galgano1:57:33

But it's okay. I'm aphib free. That's the only way to cure an aphib. And a you when you have aphib, you have two choices. Heart meds and blood thinners or an ablation.

Rich Galgano1:57:42

And I don't want to

I recommend everybody do the ablation.

Rich Galgano1:57:46

You know, it's messed up my um parasympathetic and sympathetic system a little bit. It's hard for me to go parasympathetic.

My resting heart rate used to be in the

50s even with the congestive heart failure cuz I was working out like a beast.

Yeah. you know, now after post-ablation, you know, it's hard for me to get, you know, above, you know, below 65. Oh,

Okay.

Rich Galgano1:58:11

Oh, reload.

Yeah, reload.

Okay. All right. So, out out of Kabuki,

Rich Galgano1:58:15

Came uh reload. So, they had these they had these uh sticks, a guy by the name of uh Donnie Thompson um called body tempering.

Rich Galgano1:58:29

I got a great partner Derek McCormack and this is about a year ago and Derek and me we came up it was really Derek he made like a little mini like a little mini stick. Okay, like last March of 2025 I said these are great you know we got to find a way to anchor them.

Rich Galgano1:58:52

Yeah. So stainless steel. So when you go to a a a massage therapist, a chiropractor, they're digging thumbs into you. They're digging elbows into you. They're dry

Needling. Grafton graft grafting is more massage is more massage.

Rich Galgano1:59:09

Achilles. So this is a little bit different. So this is nobody was doing like trigger point therapy. I

Rich Galgano1:59:15

This is pressure point. And we so what we did is we we developed three different dome surf surface areas and we developed a way we patented uh a mechanism a way for you to self uh administer. So you are basically you're the practitioner and the participant

And what you do is you you apply pressure through these domes in a multitude of ways either on your foot your back or every part of your body and then when you apply pressure okay so what happens we be in athletics life we become when when our body senses something wrong I'm going to use the term we become guarded right a protective guard

Rich Galgano1:59:56

Yeah and it muscle tightens up and that's your brain saying, "I don't want you using this."

Rich Galgano2:00:01

Right. There's another There's a difference between being hurt and injured versus being guarded or having pain. Y

So, when you apply pressure for a short period of time,

The mechano the the the mechano receptors, the preceptors, when you do that and then you start applying movement, the brain says it starts firing all these neurons. The science is there. And then all of a sudden you're free.

Yeah. That's like active release therapy where they're they're massaging while you're moving your foot or your ankle and they're massaging the calf and the Achilles. So yeah. So the biggest the way when I decided to go all in, I had I don't I don't I can't call it children impingement syndrome because I never got diagnosed my shoulder for over two years. I could pain sleeping at night. I had to adjust my workouts. I couldn't do push-ups. One day I would have pain in my form. one day the tricep in the trap in the lateral delt and when you went for an MRI it said no injury I never had any pain never I mean never had a day without pain ever I couldn't turn a steering wheel with my left hand

Rich Galgano2:01:09

Never got an MRI I would go to a phys my physical therapist who was awesome and she would do dry needling work it and I would be good for a day

Then it would come back and I couldn't see I couldn't see her every It was not realistic. Okay. It just wasn't. So Derek and me developed these these little micro balls. All of a sudden, I start laying on them. Yeah. 10 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day. Within every day, twice a day. Within two weeks, nothing. And no pain. I started mace training. Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I went to heavy mace. Freeing up. Light mace. Freeing up. Within a month, nothing. I I could use my I no issue sleeping.

I mean, my shoulder was so bad. I wasn't like clinically depressed where I was going to do something, but I was depressed in the fact that I couldn't exercise. You know, I used to be able to rip off a 100 push-ups. I couldn't do 10.

Rich Galgano2:02:08

Right. I know exactly because of the because of the pain.

And then I said, I don't and I'm not a scientist, okay? I'm an entrepreneur.

But it worked.

It's anecdotal, but it it worked. I did nothing else in my life but lay on some steel domes, apply pressure twice a day, 10 minutes, 10 minutes for two weeks and now all of a sudden something something happened. Okay. Now I can't make claims because the do you know I'm not a doctor but it worked. Yeah.

And I we've given this product to too many people. I have too much anecdotal evidence. So it is it's pressure, movement and time. And when you apply pressure anywhere, shoulders, tricep, bicep, anywhere, your brain is firing all these neurons to that area. And it's saying, "I'm okay. I'm okay." And then when you get up afterwards, you feel incredible. So now before I work out, I'll do five or 10 minutes. And then if I'm doing, let's say I'm doing shoulder presses, lat raises, and bench, I will do what I call recovery reps.

Yep. So in between a rep, this is like active recovery. I'll lay on the dome. I'll lay on my anterior delt. I'll lay on my lateral delt. I'll get it into my pec. I'll use a stick. Hit my pec. The next rep is incredible. Now, here's why we call reload. Cuz these domes look like artillery shells.

Rich Galgano2:03:30

But also think about this before you look before you work out. I want you to load that gun. Load that gun. You shoot the gun. So, you have a rep, you know, reload. Reload the gun. Use the reload. You know, I'm not I'm I'm not claiming you're going to lift more, anything else, but you are going to you should feel different in that second rep or that third rep. Mobility, um, rejuvenation, uh, active, it's I can't explain it. You know, you you got to try it.

In the price point. You you can you can get in this if you're if you're a serious athlete, if you're not a serious athlete, if you're someone just who is guarded or gummed up, you can get tremendous relief. Um, and I'm really excited about it.

It's it's it's a rounding year for me in terms of my b other businesses, but this is the thing I'm most passionate about cuz I'm going to be able to help people feel better. Well, you know what you say like you would depress about your shoulder. I always tell people, a rich man has a million problems. A sick man has one. I'm sure there are days when your shoulders hurt and you would be like, I would give any amount of money just to feel like a normal person.

Rich Galgano2:05:32

I've given this to three people with PF and all this is all anecdotal. Yeah. Right. We have no studies.

One of them is running again. Yep. Um, the other two are feel astronomical. They feel incredible.

Rich Galgano2:05:56

Yeah, for sure. I'm um I'm excited for you to see all this stuff. And

Rich Galgano2:06:13

Like she never trained really a year ago. She's always been a great athlete and I'm so proud of her. She work her work ethic is unbelievable. Um she's put on I mean she is freaking I mean you look at her arms and stuff she is in phenomenal shape.

Rich Galgano2:07:10

Did you practice the cuz I

Rich Galgano2:07:26

Yeah.

Rich Galgano2:08:06

Are you Are you doing the one in Nashville in December? There's a high rocks in N. She

She couldn't get in that one. So, she's never done one. She's been training for it. So, she's doing one in Chicago.

Rich Galgano2:08:31

Okay, great.

Rich Galgano2:08:35

Uh I My kids don't like me being on social media.

Rich Galgano2:08:42

I know. Yeah, I got Instagram, a little bit of Tik Tok. Right now, if someone's managing it, so I just sent them a a whole bunch of videos.

I sent a bunch of videos. They've been parsing them out, putting them out there.

Rich Galgano2:09:12

Yeah. So it's even better in the book cuz all the documents are in there. The TTRO I mean I have actually have

Rich Galgano2:09:20

Down to the wire. The outlandish the outlandish tale of how I quit gambling to win big.

Rich Galgano2:09:28

Uh Amazon. There's there's I don't know if there's any hard copies, hard covers left. Those been sold out. Soft copies. I think the Kindle I got it down to 3.99. So it's really inexpensive. I did bring you a signed copy though.

Rich Galgano2:09:41

All right.