Vending

Massachusetts vending scholarship renamed in honor of Allan Z Gilbert

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February 20, 2023

Allan Z. Gilbert

The trustees of The Massachusetts Vending Association Scholarship Fund, a tax exempt, public charity, has renamed the fund The Allan Z. Gilbert Memorial Scholarship Fund to honor the passing of Allan Z. Gilbert, the founder of the fund, its first chairman, a past trustee and its foremost benefactor.

Gilbert, who passed away in 2022, started in the vending business by placing penny gumball machines while a student at Boston University. These machines led to the start of the New England Vending Corp. He then went on to create DISC, an acronym for Data Intelligence Software Corporation, one of the first vending specific software platforms.

Following DISC, Gilbert launched Lemon Tree Systems, a manual foodservice system.

Gilbert later founded, Merrimac Financial, a company that loaned money to vending operators to buy vending machines.

The scholarship fund began in 1988 and has awarded a total of $718,950 to the children of the employees of Massachusetts Vending Association member companies. It is supported by voluntary contributions from the member companies and the investment income from its funded endowment.

The association announced the name change in a press release.

In 2021, Vending Times honored Gilbert with its first Lifetime Achievement Award. The award was presented by Elliot Maras, editor of Vending Times, at the 2021 Self-Service Innovation Summit in Hollywood, Florida.