Month: September 2016

Taste Of New Tampa Returning!

taste2web — (l.-r.) WCCC CEO Hope Allen, NT Rotary president Brice Wolford, WCCC Board Chair Tracy Clouser and WCCC Ambassadors Craig Miller and James Carner at the signing ceremony held at the Chamber office to officially give the New Tampa Rotary the right to host the 2017 Taste of New Tampa on March 18.

I will admit that I was crazy excited to learn that the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce (WCCC) — our exclusive webcast partner for WCNT-tv — was getting ready to sign off on having the New Tampa Rotary Club (which meets Fridays for breakfast at Tampa Palms Golf & Country Club) put on the next Taste of New Tampa.

Sadly, I thought that official announcement was coming a few months ago…and then, a few weeks ago.

Well, on Sept. 14, it became official. There will be a 21st Taste of New Tampa — and Wesley Chapel — on Saturday, March 18, 2017!

But somehow, the bigger news for all of us who plan to dive headfirst into bringing back one of our area’s most popular single-day events than the fact that there finally will be another Taste is the location for the event — Florida Hospital Center Ice (FHCI)!

FHCI co-owner/developer Gordie Zimmerman may not have been able to be on-hand for the signing ceremony between the WCCC and the New Tampa Rotary, but Zimmerman stepped up to the plate in a big way by agreeing to bring the event primarily back indoors for the first time since the first Taste back in 1994 (when it was held in and outside of Hunter’s Green Country Club), instead of outside in what has too often been either sweltering heat or sideways-falling, driving rain.

The signing ceremony, held at the Chamber office in The Grove at Wesley Chapel, featured New Tampa Rotary president Brice Wolford and WCCC Board chair Tracy Clouser signing off on a document that took a little while to finalize, but will definitely prove to be worth the wait for both the organizers and the likely thousands of attendees who will be on hand to help raise money for the New Tampa Rotary’s selected charities.

Also at the signing ceremony were Chamber president and CEO Hope Allen and WCCC ambassadors (and New Tampa Rotary Club members) James Carner and Craig Miller. Yes, that is the same Craig Miller of Full Throttle Intermedia who also is my partner on WCNT-tv.

Putting Together A Team

The New Tampa Rotary is already putting together a team of volunteers to help ensure the success of the event. I have agreed to be the Taste restaurant coordinator, while former Rotary Club of Wesley Chapel historian (who also has been a past Rotary District Governor) David West of Signarama of New Tampa, who is now a member of the New Tampa Rotary, will be the sponsorship coordinator. New Tampa Rotary member Karen Frashier will be among those responsible for marketing the event and more announcements will come in the future.

The 2017 Taste is only 25 weeks (a little more than six months) away, so the organizers need to move quickly to ensure that the first to be held since 2014 (on one of those sideways-rain days, when it was held in Primrose Park off Commerce Park Blvd. in Tampa Palms). I handled the restaurants for that event and there were 30 committed at one point, but the reports of likely bad weather that day caused numerous day- and week-of-the-event cancellations. That shouldn’t be a problem inside the 150,000-sq.-ft. FHCI — which will be the largest skating facility south of New York when it opens.

“It’s a great opportunity to revive an amazing event,” Allen said after the signing ceremony. “The Chamber is getting out of the business of putting on major events like these, so it was great that the New Tampa Rotary stepped up to bring back the Taste.” The Chamber also has divested itself of its own Fall Festival, which will have its 12th edition put on this year at The Grove shopping center the weekend of October 29-30. by Simply Events, which was introduced at the WCCC’s September business breakfast.

Look for more updates about the Taste in these pages, at WCNeighborhoodNews.com and on future episodes of WCNT-tv. We also will post information for those who want to help with putting on the event.

Taste of New Tampa

The Grout Doctor Is In & Making House Calls In New Tampa!

Bill Porter, who has owned his local Grout Doctor franchise for eight years, can handle even the hardest grout cleaning jobs, as well as offering many other services, like tile repair.

Bill Porter travels the paved arteries of New Tampa and Wesley Chapel healing the distress that homeowners experience with mold-infected and broken grout and tile.

Porter is The Grout Doctor.

But, instead of working in a clean, well-lit operating room, a typical house call for Porter involves a long day on his hands and knees in a cramped, moldy shower stall, scraping and cleaning away accumulated soap, shampoo and mold. He is succinct in describing the task “It’s a very labor-intensive job,” Porter says.

Porter has been a Grout Doctor franchise owner for eight years — one of more than 85 in the U.S., including seven in Florida — following a career as a heavy equipment operator in the Florida phosphate industry. He says lessons taught to him by his father and grandfather growing up in Canisteo, NY, have served him well in both careers.

“It’s like my father told me,” Porter says, “‘if you’re going to do something right, do it right the first time.’”

Routine services Porter provides are grout cleaning or regrouting, repairing or replacing broken tiles as well as caulking. He applies his skills to a variety of tile surfaces, including marble, terrazzo, travertine and limestone.

When you take a good look at most homes in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel, there’s usually plenty of tile, from interior spaces like bathrooms, kitchens and high-traffic floors to outside lanais and pools. Porter will work on all of it, wherever it may be located. “There’s a lot of tile everywhere,” Porter says.

Since people tend to take tile and grout for granted — until neglect and sometimes even abuse becomes all too apparent — Porter is often confronted with a substantial professional challenge.

“People don’t do anything for years and years, until the work needs to be done,” Porter says. “You go to some jobs and it’s learn as you go.”

Elbow grease and sweat may be the main ingredients for successfully completing any assignment, but knowledge and focus also are required, Porter says.

“You have to mix the grout properly, you have to apply the grout properly and you have to take your time.”

It’s not just a diminished sense of ownership pride that occurs as a result of dingy showers afflicted with soap scum and mold. One of the most common molds that finds tile grout to be a hospitable medium is cladosporium, which is olive-green to brown or black in appearance and has been associated with allergies and asthma, according to the website for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) & Prevention website.

In addition, GroutDoctor.com identifies other potential grout-related problems besides mold. Cracked and missing grout can lead to damaged walls from leaking water and underlying floor surfaces also can be damaged. Checking for those kinds of problems is one of the first things Porter does when he starts a job.

“I go around and touch the walls and if I feel sponginess, that means the wallboard has gotten wet,” Porter says, noting that replacing small sections of wallboard and wood framing are part of his services.

While Porter cleans and repairs grout and tiles and refreshes the appearance of tiled spaces, he does not perform complete tiling jobs, although he will replace small sections if the correct tiles are easily available. He says people should hang onto any extra tiles they may have after construction or a major tile installation since they are produced in limited runs and generally not available afterward.

Porter also suggests taking a good look inside your boxes of leftover tiles, as he has often opened them only to discover nothing but a pile of broken tiles inside. He says trying to repair broken tiles usually yields disappointing results.

“It just never really looks that good compared to an unbroken tile,” he admits.

A full work day is usually needed to clean and regrout a routine shower assignment, followed by a 48-hour dry period, so customers need to plan accordingly, Porter says. Time to complete other projects will vary, especially when it comes to pools, since outdoor assignments are weather-dependent. Before leaving your home, Porter will take the time to explain how to properly care for the rehabilitated surfaces. He also will leave samples of Grout Doctor cleaning products, like the Grout Doctor Shower Cleaner and the Grout Doctor Neutral Cleaner, for customers to use.

“They’re very good products,” said Porter. “They’ve done the research and know what works.”

Porter has earned an A rating on the consumer website Angie’s List and the endorsement of customers such as Live Oak Preserve resident John Martel, who called upon Grout Doctor to work on his home’s pool. “Bill did a really nice job,” Martel says. “My pool was 10 years old and had a lot of grout that needed replacing. He replaced the grout and some broken tiles and sealed all the grout when he was done. He got it looking like new again.”

Franchise Opportunities, Too!

Porter says there are franchise opportunities with Grout Doctor available for people who are willing to apply themselves toward being successful.

“(The company) is always looking to expand and there are opportunities in Florida,’’ Porter says. “But you better be prepared to work hard and go the extra mile. The phone isn’t going to ring by itself, you have to make it ring.”

As for compensation, Porter says it’s a good way to make money, and more.

“It’s a good feeling when I’ve done a good job,’’ he says. “I want to see them smiling when I walk out the door.”

Call Bill Porter for a free estimate at 782-2277, or visit GroutDoctor.com, where you also can find out about franchise opportunities and Grout Doctor products. Or, see the ad on pg. 37.

Grout Doctor

Running Great Automotive Of North Tampa Keeps Your Car On The Road

running-great-1 — Owner Glen Yudman of Running Great is usually on-hand to check in your vehicle.

The quest for reliable bumper-to-bumper auto repair services has led many drivers to consumer dead ends, or back to dealerships. Glen Yudman, the owner of Running Great Automotive on N. Nebraska Ave., just south of Skipper Rd., stakes his reputation on providing comprehensive, dealer-quality automotive repair and restoration services at neighborhood mechanic prices.

Yudman’s guiding principle is straightforward. “Staying honest,” he says. “Everybody will say that, but we truly are. My guys do not work on commission. They are on salary, so it’s not like the more repairs they do, the more they make.”

Whether your ride is a homemade swamp buggy or a late-model Mercedes Benz, Yudman and his crew of mechanics will do their best to keep you Running Great. The shop has 14,000-sq.-ft. of work space to provide services ranging from oil changes to complete overhauls of derelict and inoperable classic cars. That includes repairing and replacing transmissions, electrical systems, engines, brakes, air conditioning services and more.

“We do regular daily repairs and maintenance on any automobile and classic auto restoration,’’ Yudman says. “We have a full paint and body shop and collision center.”

As a National Automotive Parts Association (NAPA) auto care center, Yudman says repairs from Running Great carry a nationwide warranty.

Yudman’s mechanics have diverse specialties but one thing they share is lengthy experience in the auto repair trade. Many of them started working on cars before they were old enough to drive legally. Yudman found his life’s calling at age 13, working in his family’s New York City gas station.

“I pretty much have always been in this business,” says Yudman, who came to Florida and bought the existing Running Great Automotive repair shop in 1997.

Most of the mechanics have been employed at Running Great for 10 years or longer. Chris Bach is certified as a Master Mechanic by the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) and has been working there for 32 years, starting out when Nebraska Ave. was a two-lane road and the business was called Mad Hatter Mufflers, Brakes & Transmissions. He’s witnessed how the business has evolved over three decades and three owners.

“The cars are so advanced now, you can go a hundred thousand miles before you need a tune-up,” says Bach.

The technicians are seeing a lot of cars with six-figure mileage at Running Great. Bach says people are keeping their cars longer and that vehicle longevity actually depends as much upon routine maintenance as any other factor. “The key to driving the same car for a long time is lots of (on-time) fluid and filter changes,” he says.

Yudman concurs, with what could be considered a car owner’s mantra: “Change your oil, change your oil, change your oil.” He also recommends fixing leaks and investigating strange noises as soon as they start.

“The longer you wait, the more it will cost,” says Yudman.

Kay Prudente of Tampa Palms likes to drive Toyota 4 Runners and get the most mileage possible out of them. Her current vehicle is a member of the 100,000-mile club a few times over.

“My first Toyota 4 Runner, I got 300,000 miles out of it, thanks to Running Great taking such great care of it,” she says.

Prudente adds that she is on her second 4 Runner and expects to get just as much mileage out of it.

“I faithfully bring it in every 3,000 miles and they stay on top of preventive maintenance,” she says. “I will not take my car anywhere else. They’re upfront, honest and not going to pull a fast one on you.”

Besides long-time customers, Yudman says a lot of Running Great’s business comes from car owners who want to get another opinion on a recommended repair.

“We get people who come in to ask us to take a second look at things after they’ve been to the dealership,” Yudman says.

Running Great Automotive also has the facilities to perform post-accident repairs. The body and paint shop can restore a car’s appearance and the collision center is equipped with a frame rack that applies up to 11-1/2 tons of pressure to straighten anything that gets bent out of shape.

Often it’s Steve Theis, a mechanic with 40 years of experience, operating the rack. He says it takes knowledge, skill and an acute awareness to apply just the right amount of pressure for any collision repair.

“If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll ruin a car,’’ Theis says. “The harder it is to pull, the more stoked I get.”

Theis also takes pride in the welding performed at Running Great. “When we do a weld, we do a solid weld,” he says.

With a humid, subtropical climate like Tampa’s, Theis and his body shop colleagues encounter a lot of rust damage.

“We try to eliminate any kind of rust we see,” he says. “We don’t paint over anything. We always take it back to clean metal.”

Keeping Classics Classy

Classic car restoration is another service at Running Great. The definition of “classic car” has evolved with time and can now include anything from a 1978 AMC Gremlin to a 1957 Cadillac Eldorado or 1922 Ford Model T Roadster. Eddie Lee Gant works on a lot of the restoration projects at Running Great, and says a common factor is that owners will start working on a car themselves and discover the task is bigger than they thought.

Gant, who has been working on cars since he was, “knee-high to a grasshopper,” says a classic car can be restored to reflect its original design and components or be updated with modern comforts and accessories like new air conditioning or sequential turn signals. To him, the reward is more than a paycheck.

“It’s great seeing the customer’s face when you’re done,” Gant says, adding that he appreciates the variety of projects that come through the garage door. “It’s always something different. It’s never he same old routine here.”

When customers come into the shop, they’re usually greeted by Yudman himself or service manager John Persing, Sr., who says he started his own auto repair business almost six decades ago, when he was 13 years old. He emphasizes paying attention to what the customer says as the first step in resolving any car problem, and then following up as needed.

“I ask them what the car is doing and I write it down as they explain it,” Persing says. “If we find something else is wrong as we’re working on the car, I’ll tell them.”

While there’s a lot of experience employed at Running Great, another generation of mechanics is already at work as well.

David Amman, with about 10 years of automotive repair experience, works alongside Persing at the front counter. Like a lot of the other mechanics, he started out sweeping the floor and doing oil changes. His interest is in classic car restoration and he handles much of the detail work customers want done.

“I change out the carpets, headliners, clocks and a lot of weird stuff people bring in, like replacing the emblem on a car,” the Wesley Chapel High graduate says.

Yudman says Running Great truly is a family business, as he has the satisfaction of sons Robby and Danny working with him.

Robby Yudman is a graduate of Hillsborough Community College’s Automotive Repair & Technology program and handles brake and suspension tasks, among others. He says solving a mechanical problem is akin to being a detective and a successful repair brings a true sense of accomplishment.

“When you fix a car, you feel like you did something,” Robby says. “You get to see it leave better than when it came in.”

His brother Danny is a junior at the University of South Florida and is studying economics while still working six days a week at Running Great, where he does welding and classic car restoration. While he’s eager to apply both his financial knowledge and mechanical skills to the business, Danny says customer service is his top priority.

“It’s a family business and we treat the cars like they’re our own,” Danny says. “We’ve been around for as long as we have for a reason.”

Service at Running Great Automotive is on a first-come, first-serve basis according to Glen Yudman. Oil changes come with a free inspection and topping off of fluids.

Running Great is located at 14513 N. Nebraska Ave. in Tampa, and is open Monday-Friday, 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., and 7:30 a.m.-1 p.m. on Saturday. For more info about all available services (all insurance plans are accepted), and a coupon for a discount on an oil change, please visit RunningGreatAuto.com. Or, call 971-0642 or see the ad on pg. 24 of this issue.

Running Great Automotive

‘Project Innovate’ Brings New Laptops & Ways To Learn To Chiles

chilesweb — L.-r.: Chiles fifth graders Drew Moose, Ava Campbell, De’Vantae Jackson and Paige Duffield.

Chiles Elementary fifth-grader Aaron Back has his notebook open, and his laptop charged up. Instead of doing his research by paging through a book — and good luck finding a book on sand boils, which he currently is studying — Back is able to peruse the web, scribbling his findings and ideas on paper.

“I like that you have more than one option,’’ says Back, who is 10 years old. “When you’re reading, you only have one option, but (on the computer) you have lots of options you can go to.”

Back is one of 146 fifth-graders at Chiles, which is located in Tampa Palms, taking part in Hillsborough County’s “Project Innovate,” which provides students with a Hewlett Packard x360 laptop for a completely different — and a little more advanced — learning experience.

“The concept is to prepare our students for the digital age they are growing up in and to increase engagement with their teachers, as well as meeting the needs of students by differentiating instruction in a more confidential way,’’ says Chiles assistant principal Ashley Galfond.

The county has provided 150 of the laptops to Chiles, with the hope of changing the learning landscape and getting kids comfortable with more high-tech means of taking notes and producing projects.

Schoolwork is done using Microsoft products, and the work is all held in OneNote, a digital note-taking app. If insurance issues can be worked out, the students may even be able to take those laptops home during the second semester, but for now, they can still access their work on their families’ home computers.

Back and the other students will be able to ultimately file their assignments to English Language Arts (ELA) teacher Nancy Erickson in many different media. “They can do their projects however they want,’’ Erickson says. “If you’re passionate and an artist and want to make posters, that’s a great thing. I can’t draw to save my life, so I might be more comfortable doing something digital-oriented. The nice part is, they can look at the info and say, ‘This is the best way I can present my information, so I’m going to present it in a brochure, make a poster or make a movie trailer.’”

Galfond is in her second year at Chiles, after coming over from Turner-Bartels, the grades K-8 school in Live Oak Preserve.

chiles_aaron — Chiles fifth-grader Aaron Back. 10, works on his project about sand boils.

At Turner-Bartels, Galfond was part of preparing the first “cohort,” or group of students working together, for Project Innovate, before coming to Chiles last year to prepare the students for being the second cohort, which started this new school year.

“We’ve been doing it on a small scale to learn as we go and to be able to support the students so there is a successful implementation,’’ Galfond says, adding that the intent is to include other grades in the near future.

The current laptops have keyboards, but also can be flipped to work as a tablet. But, Erickson said the goal is to get kids used to the more traditional laptop form. In fact, she says, so many kids have iPads and other tablets that this has been their first work, for many, on a regular laptop computer.

“They don’t have the basic computer skills that, I guess, I use every day,’’ Erickson says. “They are not users, they are players, if that makes sense. So, things like editing, and copying and pasting things like URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), or typing and moving the cursor up and down, they didn’t know that.”

Erickson adds, however, that she expected the transition to be a learning process — even for her, since she is primarily an Apple user.

The students are enjoying their new tools. Their class, part of a daily “Genius Hour” afforded to students to work independently and on whatever they choose, is quiet. The students seem more earnest in their work, and the only sound is the tappity-tap of a keyboard or students softly whispering as they share their work with one another.

As for Erickson, she likes the options the project gives her as a teacher.

Instead of collecting papers and taking them home to grade, she can look at quizzes and assignments immediately and provide feedback while the topic is still fresh in the students’ minds. She also can make suggestions and help privately instruct individuals who might have questions they wouldn’t normally ask in front of the whole class.

“I can post something and ask them, ‘Type in your reactions to this,’” Erickson says. “I can take polls, and I can do really quick, down-and-dirty assessments that way. We can do quiz-like games, and (the students) are having a blast doing that, too.”

Erickson’s group is currently studying Crystal Springs, which is located in the southeastern corner of Pasco County, since the class will take a field trip there Sept. 14-15. The students have been tasked with producing reports on various aspects of the springs, from why they exist to the wildlife that lives nearby, to, well, even sand boils (which, according to Wikipedia, occur when water under pressure wells up through a bed of sand. The water looks like it is “boiling” up from the sand, hence the name).

For other things they study where a field trip is not possible, the students will be able to use their laptops to Skype with experts on location.

“The great things about (the laptops) is they (students) can take this as far as they want,’’ Erickson says, adding that one student already has asked if he can do coding for a Nintendo game. “I think you’ll see a lot more great things as we go forward.”

chiles elementary Project Innovate

USF Credit Union’s New Branch To Open In New Tampa

For the first time in its nearly 60-year history, the USF Federal Credit Union (FCU) is venturing off campus to open a new branch in New Tampa.

On August 29, USF president and New Tampa resident Judy Genshaft, USF FCU President and CEO Rick Skaggs, Tampa City Council chair (and USF grad) Mike Suarez and a number of other school dignitaries stuck ceremonial shovels into a pile of dirt during a ground-breaking ceremony at the northwest corner of Bruce B. Downs (BBD) and Imperial Oak Blvd., in the Trout Creek area near Winn-Dixie.

“It’s a fabulous location, and we know that the population is growing soooo fast in this area of our region and of our state,’’ Genshaft told the crowd. “(The branch) is modeled after the Marshall Center (branch) that has been fabulous and so well-received.”

The first-ever standalone off-campus branch of the USF Federal Credit Union, which boasts 52,000 members, which will be located in front of the plaza that houses Winn Dixie and LA Fitness and across Imperial Oak Blvd. from Burger King, is expected to open in mid-2017.

“It’s the first off-campus building of the credit union,’’ said Skaggs. “We’ve had other offices (off campus), but this is the first one that will be a standalone facility, so it’s a big day in our history.”

USF Building Bigger, Better

The new credit union will go up just a few hundred yards from its current location in the same plaza.

The impetus for acquiring the land to build the two-story, 12,300-sq.-ft. credit union, in fact, is due in part to the success of that New Tampa office, Skaggs said, as well as the knowledge that this area is home to many USF grads and employees.

“We have a lot of faculty and staff that live in this area as well, and going back from here to the university might as well be like going to St. Petersburg, so this is going to be a nice hub for us,’’ Skaggs said.

He noted that there have been numerous studies done on the membership base located in New Tampa, and those studies also reveal that many graduates settle in the area after attending USF and would like to remain members. Suarez, for example, said at the groundbreaking that he still has the same account he started 30 years ago when he was a USF student.

New USF FCU, New Offerings

The new facility will allow the credit union to expand the services offered at other off-campus locations, like in mortgage lending and wealth management. There will be a large community room available for meetings and functions, Skaggs said, equipped with a large TV for presentations and multi-media capabilities.

There also will be drive-through tellers and “universal service reps,” who according to Skaggs, are like bank tellers of the future. Since many patrons use electronic banking and don’t bother with the brick and mortar building for simple tasks like deposits and withdrawals anymore, universal service reps will be equipped to handle not only traditional teller duties, but also all of the other services offered by the credit union.

“The concept is like an Apple Store,’’ Skaggs said. “In the Marshall Center, the design we put in there has been very well-received. The open architecture feel, as well as all the electronic services, remote access, all of it, will be a totally different environment than a regular bank or credit union drive-through.”

USF FCU Highly Regarded

In July, the USF FCU, which was chartered in 1959 for the staff and faculty and began serving students in 1990, was named as the 2016 Credit Union of the Year by the League of Southeastern Credit Unions & Affiliates (LSCU) in the “$500 Million in Assets or Above” category.

Its merger with Darden Employees Federal Credit Union, the renovation of the Marshall Student Center Branch and the executive internship program, which allows students to work at the Marshall Center location and earn college credit, were cited in earning the award.

Skaggs said USF FCU has more than $500 million in assets, 135 employees and lends in excess of $100 million per year.

For more info, visit USFFCU.org or call 569-2000.

USF Credit Union