Richard “Dick” Gilbert passed away on Jan. 6 at San Antonio Regional Hospital in Upland, CA. Gilbert had a long and successful career in the asset-based lending industry and was instrumental in the formation of the Commercial Finance Conference of California (CFCC), which is now known as the Southern California chapter of the Secured Finance Network.

Gilbert began his career at Community Bank before moving to National Acceptance of California, Sanwa Business Credit and Foothill Capital. Later, Gilbert became vice chairman at KBK Financial. He also came out of retirement to work at Business Finance Group (Capital Source).

Gilbert devoted many hours to the San Antonio Regional Hospital Foundation, where he served on the board of trustees for nearly 20 years. Gilbert was also an active board member of the CFCC and was the driving force behind the annual CFCC golf tournament, which began in 1995. In an effort to celebrate all of Gilbert’s contributions, the board of directors of the SoCal chapter of the SFNet renamed its annual tournament to The Richard “Dick” Gilbert Memorial Golf Tournament.