PERSONALITIES IN THE FOX: Robert Renteria

Quick! Think of a comic book hero! Does he show impressive courage in the face of daunting odds? Does he stand up for truth, justice, and the American way? Is he an expert in the coin-operated laundry industry?

YOU might just need to expand your understanding of what it takes to become the hero of your own graphic novel! It would help to meet Robert Renteria of North Aurora. Renteria has been hard at work expanding people’s concept of what he is capable of doing since he was 21 years old in East L.A. At that time he was a high-school dropout: working, but also wasting his life with gang activities, drugs and alcohol.

Growing up poor, Robert first formed his life’s ambitions when he took to heart his grandfather’s warning that if he didn’t get out of the barrio and make something of his life he would have, at best, many regrets and, at worst, a short life expectancy. “It wasn’t a lifestyle---it was a death style!” Robert wrote in his first book (From the Barrio to the Boardroom by Robert Renteria as told to Corey Blake, Writers of the Round Table Press, 2008). 

Renteria’s first step to success he credits to the military. There he developed a mental toughness and resolve to go with his physical toughness. He went into the Army motivated to make something of his life. After seven years (several in Special Forces) he came out ready to motivate others. With $200 and a will to succeed Robert moved to Chicago, and began at the bottom. His business? Servicing coin-operated laundry contracts.

He learned a couple of his most important business lessons almost immediately: if you work harder than everybody else and get better results than everybody else, then you can make a success in any business. Next in order: if you plan to succeed then you’d better have a plan. With goals. And a timeline. That simple formula propelled him to tops in sales, tops in profits, tops in new business. And finally, in 2001, co-founder of his own company.

How did Robert’s life become a graphic novel? Basically he decided it was time to change his focus and give back, reaching out to young people through any means. “We are not a carbon copy,” he wrote, “but an original; each of us is our own masterpiece.” 

Robert Renteria’s passions become his plans; his plans become his goals.  His passion now is to communicate the story of his own life, including all the pitfalls and problems, to a new generation that needs his example. And his motivation. “When I talk to young people I tell them that it is like taking a trip: you have to map it out or you’re not going to get there. You can’t hit a target that you can’t see. And you can’t reach a goal that you don’t have.”

And the secret that he tells them? “Hard work, Dedication, and Education. And the foundation of everything is Education, because once you have it no one can ever take it away.”

Robert Renteria made his fortune in a business that he describes as not recession-proof, but recession-resistant. “It’s a business that is never going to go away. If you’re selling sailboats you are dealing with a small minority who are going to be interested. In the laundry business you are dealing with a much larger segment of society. My philosophy is simple; everybody wants to be treated with respect.”

He has created the graphic novel to help communicate his message to young people. Titled Mi Barrio, it s a retelling of Robert’s life story and its lessons.  (Fox Valley Magazine readers can download a free copy at www.smartercomics.com).

At his website, www.fromthebarrio.com, he offers a curriculum meeting state standards in Illinois. It is for school or youth groups, anyone who helps spread his message. About that message, Renteria emphasizes, “My book is about one race: the human race. We all have hopes and dreams. We all bleed red. When I’m speaking to a youth group they’re not thinking, ‘He’s Latino.’ Kids don’t know color. They know love.”