Personal Profile of Roland Pinto – Part II

Roland Pinto spent a few months in the US Navy. He started boot camp but was discharged for medical reasons under honorable conditions. After that, he spent time working as a fire fighter. He worked very hard because he was 18, was able to shed his cadet title and go for becoming a real firefighter.

He joined a live-in department in Prince Georges County outside of Washington DC and enjoyed getting three to four calls per night. "I lived on two hours of sleep, that I took between calls and loved it," he said.

During nine months that Pinto was at PG County, the biggest fire he saw was a four alarm fire. Six or seven separate engine companies and even surrounding counties were involved. The thrill and the sacrifice seemed to draw him in.

"I mean it was amazing, I can't even explain the rush and the fast pace, you live it," he said.

During this time, he had also looked into working with a company called LSS Laboratories, reviving his interests in electronics. It was a company that, in the late '80s and early '90s sold theatrical lighting and control systems. This was the base of one of his previous companies, RNP Technologies. He began selling and supporting their equipment. However, he wasn't satisfied. "The problem was, if I wanted to be a bigger company, I needed to think bigger," he said, "so I decided to go to college."

At that point, he asked himself where he could go. He said that he needed to get out of DC and go somewhere where there is nothing to do, "out in the middle of nowhere" where there wouldn't be anything of interest to him, otherwise he might drop out. Thus, he came to Nebraska.

Unfortunately, school has not been a true priority, however, during his second semester, while making plans for a night club, (which consequently fell through), he stumbled upon something.

"I went into this crappy electronics store and acquired a Martin (a well known high tech lighting company) catalog by accident," he said, "and I realized that robotic lighting, the most up to date in lighting, was not only scarce here, but basically not available at all." Thus, he called the Martin Company and told them that he was a dealer in Nebraska. From there, he became the only Martin dealer for much of the Midwest.

After that, Roland Pinto began doing the lighting for local bands like Daily Blues and Lie Awake, and shows at the University of Nebraska city campus union, like ethnic shows Malaysia Night, India Night, and Africa Night. He worked with the operations manager for the University Bill Behmer on nearly 20 shows in the three year period.

"Quite frankly I am amazed because with these shows, you are dealing with a) amateurs, b) a committee, and c) language and culture barriers in some cases," Behmer said, "I find it pretty admirable that he is able to work with an incredibly diverse group of students."

Through all of this, he built up his clientele here and then in 1994 joined the Scarlet and Cream Singers as the lighting and sound coordinator, which got his name out even more. He put a lot of time and energy into his company, and unfortunately, he did find something to distract him in Nebraska with RNP Technologies, his business, because he was suspended from school during one of his semesters due to academic performance.

He continued with his business or a while and it really picked up. The following semester he went back to school at UNL. "The only reason I am staying here is because I have to go to school, I know a lot of people and friends here and I am setup up here," he said. He said that he set a goal when he came to Nebraska and he has to stay until it is finished.

Part of that goal is to finish school, and the other part, which he may or may not finish here, is to get his advanced pilot license. In 1994 he received his high performance rating.

Corinna Rudeen, a sophomore business major at the time and close friend of his remembers that Roland Pinto was studying a lot for his flight tests. "I hung out there every day for at least 2 or 3 hours and I used to help him study," she said, "and I have never seen someone so excited and so consumed before. He loved it!"

And what comes next? "I want my multi-engine rating so I can fly twin engine machines," he said, "and fit six people comfortably, in a real nice airplane with an engine on each wing. I love the sound of two humming engines."

In the first ten years of his late teens and into his late twenties, Roland has experienced more and done more than many people will do in a lifetime. His drive and curiosity have taken him far and he has far to go, according to him. The permanent smile on his face reveals his love for life. One could say that Roland Pinto has so little to do and so much time to do it. As Roland Pinto always says, "It’s cool. It’s all cool."

Personal Profile of Roland Pinto - Part I

When I was a young entrepreneur, a very dear friend of mine wrote an article about me. She was a wonderful gal and ended up going into journalism before finding her true passion in the wonderfully tasty and smelly world of cheese. Miranda, thanks for the wonderful article, it will live on here!

By Miranda McQuillian  

Imagine getting into an airplane, flying to Washington D.C., fighting a four-alarm fire, reviving a victim, jumping back into the airplane, flying back to Lincoln, and setting up and running an entire light and sound stage while doing your biology homework. To many, this sounds impossible. To Roland Pinto, it is a list of his hobbies, of course minus the biology.

Pinto is pretty young to have done all of these things. He has a motivated attitude, curiosity, and persistence which enabled him to try and succeed in hobbies that most people only dream of doing.

Roland's interests cover a wide range of areas, including the sky above and the Earth below. At age twelve, he began mowing lawns. He got a $1,500 loan from his dad with which he bought a mower from Sears. Within a few weeks he had built up a clientele, paid his dad back, bought a riding lawn mower, also from Sears, and hired some friends. This was the beginning of his first business that eventually grew to become the sixth largest lawn service and landscaping company in the DC area at the time.

When Roland Pinto was 14, he said he was so bored that he just started taking things apart just to fix them. He taught himself how to fix and install stereos and set up and control lighting systems and equipment. "I took things apart and put them back together again, and I eventually got the hang of it" he said. His first real job involving this talent was setting up and installing a stage lighting system for his junior high school auditorium.

"I did the whole thing, by myself. I couldn't believe it, and it worked," he said, almost amazed at him.

At 16, his lawn company was flourishing, so he bought a pickup truck, a trailer, his first commercial walk behind mower, and a $15,000 Honda Civic. He smiled sheepishly, "I guess I made a lot of money but had to spend it on equipment," he said.

However, because he was only 16, he couldn't sign contracts to do commercial work. Thus, he continued mowing with his base clientele of around 220 houses and decided to pursue other interests, which included a job at the National Air and Space Museum, a Smithsonian flagship museum located in Washington DC. Roland Pinto said his work there heightened his love for airplanes and he spent three of his four years there in the Aeronautics department working for REG Davies, that department's curator.

Unfortunately, the Smithsonian was not enough to keep him busy, so he joined the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department, the number one in the nation at the time, as a cadet at age 16.

"They were the first to actually use computerized dispatch systems (CAD), and my station, Fire Station 10, had one of the two 135' ladders in all of Virginia!" he said proudly. He wasn't able to fight fires because of his age however.

At 17, he became interested in emergency medicine. He assisted on ambulance and fire calls and learned CPR and BLS (Basic Life Support). At that time he also got involved in the firefighting side of the business. Yet, he was still too young to advance past cadet. Once again, while continuing these new "hobbies," he pursued yet another interest, flying.

Pinto said he took his first flight at 16, but really started training at age 17. It quickly became his real passion.

"Oh God I love to fly! I can remember when I was 10, drawing detailed pictures of twin engine airplanes and I knew all of the airlines and airliners by heart," he said.

Brad Kusler, Roland's brother-in-law and pilot for 11 years at that time said that flying seemed to be a passion for Roland and very close to his heart.

"Flying is definitely in his blood, he very much enjoys it and that is obvious," he said, "and he knows more about planes than I do, and I've been a pilot for a long time."

No matter how much he wanted it though, being a pilot was not possible. "I wanted to be a pilot, I still do but I found out that my eyes are too bad to fly for the Navy," he said regretfully. However, he continued his flying lessons and still flies often. Soon following his first flight he turned 18, which was a huge turning point for his lawn business.

Once he turned 18, he could sign contracts and thus the commercial side of his business began. He spends around $35,000 of his own money on commercial lawn mowers, and other heavy duty equipment and began his commercial lawn and landscaping work.

His first contracts were from two Coca-Cola plants. Soon to follow was Driggs Corporation, a big construction company with a lot of work at good pay. Roland Pinto worked on both the commercial projects and houses and made a lot of money.